The Mask of Medusa by Caillois, Roger - 1964

E-028: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc.. Very Good in Very Good- dust jacket. 1964. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. Hardcover. 8vo. Clarkson N. Potter, New York, 1964. 127 pgs. First Edition/First Printing (US). DJ has light shelf-wear present to the DJ extremities (small chip and closed tear present to the crown of the DJ spine). No ownership marks present. Text is clean and free of marks, binding tight and solid, boards lightly rubbed and worn. Caillois was a 20th-century French intellectual who wrote about diverse subjects. In this short book (127 pages) he writes about the world of insects, and how their appearances and behaviors relate to "something similar in man --- to some obsession, some myth, some irrational but compelling belief or course of action." For example, his first chapter is on man's universal interest in the praying mantis and its "courtship" (where the lady eats the man). "The interest springs from terror to which numerous myths or obsessions bear witness, e. G. Tales in which a woman possessed by a devil swallows, kills, or mutilates her lover at the very moment of union." E-028; 8.5 X 5.7 X 0.7 inches; 127 pages .