La Dame de Volupté; Mémoires de Jeanne d'Albert de Luynes, Comtesse de Verrue, surnommée Dame de Volupté
roman/novel, pub:1863, action:1670-1700
Memoirs of Mademoiselle de Luynes. Sequel is Les Deux Reines.
From A Bibliography of Alexandre Dumas père by Frank Wild Reed: This romance deals with the adventures, in Savoy, amorous and other, of the lady whose name supplies the title. Period 1670-1700.
The greater portion of it, as well as the earlier chapters of its sequel "Les Deux Reines," first appeared from the firm of Perrin, Turin, in 1855, as the second portion of the long series of romantic history entitled: "La Maison de Savoie." This first collective issue is almost unknown to bibliographers. There are considerable differences and omissions between the two versions, a list of which will be found detailed under "La Maison de Savoie." (Page 276.)
No doubt Dumas touched this up to some extent, but the work is mainly that of the Comtesse Dash. It is almost certain that Dumas never claimed more than to have been responsible for seeing it through the press, as he did with a number of works afterwards fathered upon him by his publishers, who realised but too well the worth of his name.
Original issue : Turin, Perrin, as part of Vol. III. of "La Maison de Savoie," 1855.
First complete French edition, as now : Paris, Michel Lévy, Frères, 2 vols., 12mo., 1863.
A reprint of this last now forms two volumes in the standard Calmann-Lévy edition, and one in the same firm's "Musée Littéraire."
In Le Vasseur's "Alexandre Dumas Illustré" it forms part of Vol. XII.
References :— Parran: "Bibliographie d'Alex. Dumas." page 68. Glinel: "Alexandre Dumas et Son Œuvre," page 459.
Saint-Simon: "Mémoires," for the career of the heroine.
