La Jeunesse du roi Henri
Pierre Alexis Ponson du Terrail (8 July 1829 – 20 January 1871) is one of the more significant pulp and fantasy writers of the nineteenth century. He'd deserve credit alone for the nine novels of his Rocambole saga, which not only gave French a new adjective ( rocambolesque , meaning stories of the fantastic, especially if they twist incessantly with mad new plot developments) but also set a template for the approach to pulp writing: Ponson du Terrail never intended a series, he just wanted to cash in on Eugène Sue's popular success with Les Mystères de Paris , but once he achieved that success he carried on. And on. He also turned out other series, like the four volumes of La Jeunesse du roi Henri . Arthème Fayard also republished these, with covers by Starace. Fayard originally published this at 35c before whacking the price up for the reprint. It isn't one of Starace's finest covers, but the mad gallop into the unknown seems wholly appropriate.
