Carmen

This lavish edition contains not only Mérimée's novella with large-format illustrations by Benjamin Lacombe, but also a very detailed letter from the author, published fifteen years earlier, in which he first engages with the story of Carmen, as well as a comprehensive appendix with explanations, biographical, and bibliographical information. "Over time, Carmen, this figure of late Romanticism, has become a myth, an icon of pop culture... However, reducing Carmen to Bizet's opera would be incorrect. Prosper Mérimée's heroine is so powerful that she has become the archetype of the femme fatale. She ensnares every man, weaves a web around him, and wraps him in her mantilla after rendering him completely defenseless..." Benjamin Lacombe.