Even if there had been nothing else unusual about the Breton nobleman Gilles de Rais (1404-1440), his outstanding career as a soldier in the Hundred Years' War and as a comrade in arms of Joan of Arc would have been enough to guarantee his place in history.

Today, though, those achievements can only be seen in the shadow of the secret life he led as an occultist, alchemist and the perpetrator of more than a hundred gruesome child murders, a rampage which made him arguably the first serial killer in recorded history.

There are parallels between this historic figure and the folkloristic wife-murdering character of Blue-beard ("Barbe bleue"). In this book Thomas Wilson draws directly from historic sources in retelling the life and deeds of this Folk-lore- AND real-life Villain.

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