Featured on PDR in the collection Raffaele Mainella’s Illustrations for Nos Invisibles (1907)

At first glance, it is difficult to conceive of Nos Invisibles (1907) as a controversial text. Its pages contain dreamy ruminations on the quest for spiritual serenity and “the mystery of eternal life”, interspersed with elegant illustrations by the Italian watercolourist Raffaele Mainella that conjure celestial bodies and the healing power of nature. But, as the old adage goes, looks can be deceiving. For a start, the author of Nos Invisibles — a certain Charles d’Orino — is in fact a nom de plume for Clotilde Briatte (1850–1910), a figure of Parisian high society married to a wealthy banker, Frederic Pillet-Will. Briatte received a degree of recognition in her lifetime for the six volumes of spiritualist works she published under the same pseudonym between 1904…