I found this handsome hardcover at a local thrift shop, and was entranced. It's a tale of fantasy, magic, romance, and the night, told in poetry and prose, with lavish illustrations throughout. It touches on different places and times, with such entries as this one about the French revolution and the guillotine:

The Little Chopper glistens.
Nine months later the king himself listens
to it gliding down.
One swift painless cut removes his crown
and Doctor Guillotin is next in line,
reputation in decline,
but his sentence is transmuted;
someone else is executed.

He dies in bed, still in possession of his head,
but filled, so they say, with shame
over the painless machine bearing his name.

Doctor Louis shunned fame too,
denying he'd had anything much to do with it.
"Schmidt's machine, I'm afraid. I only advised
on the shape of the blade."

Egyptian kings and gods, mysterious and lovely women, strange and dreamlike events - quite a remarkable book!

I left this book in the Little Free Library; hope someone enjoys it!

[See other recent releases in NH here.]

*** Released for the 2019 Four Elements release challenge. ***