author
Charles Louandre
1812–1882
A 19th-century French historian and bibliographer, he wrote vividly on subjects ranging from witchcraft and the devil to theater, nobility, and the decorative arts. His books mix scholarly curiosity with a taste for the strange and dramatic corners of history.
1 Audiobook
La sorcellerie
by Charles Louandre
About the author
Born in Abbeville, France, on May 15, 1812, and dying there on July 31, 1882, Charles Léopold Louandre was a French historian and bibliographer. Reference sources consistently describe him in those terms, and his work shows a broad interest in literary, social, and cultural history.
Louandre wrote and edited books on an unusually wide range of topics. Among the works associated with him are studies of witchcraft and the devil, a history of theater in France, writing on French nobility, and contributions to Les arts somptuaires, a richly illustrated work on costume, furniture, and the decorative arts. This range helps explain why his books can feel both learned and wonderfully eclectic.
He was also connected with the Journal de l'instruction publique and was listed as a member of the Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques in the later part of his life. For modern readers, he stands out as one of those 19th-century writers whose scholarship was serious, but whose curiosity led him again and again toward the vivid, unusual, and memorable parts of the past.