The Devil in Love (European Classics)

The Devil in Love (French: Le Diable amoureux, 1772) is an occult romance by Jacques Cazotte which tells of a demon, or devil, who falls in love with a young Spanish nobleman named Don Alvaro, an amateur human dabbler, and attempts, in the guise of a young woman, to win his affections.

French critic P.G. Castex has described The Devil In Love as "the very initiator of the modern fantasy story".

Canadian critic Carlo Testa has described The Devil In Love (in review of Stephen Sartarelli's 1993 translation) as a "terminus a quo" in the history of the demonic subgenre".

The Le Diable amoureux started a literary style known as fantastique, where surreal events intrude on reality and the reader is left guessing whether the events actually occurred or were merely the product of the character's imagination.

(Source: Wikipedia)