Young knight Konrad de Felseneck, last descendant of a noble line, discovers that a curse hangs over his family: women are the curse of the Felseneck since the betrayal of his ancestor during the first crusade. Then he falls into the hands of the beautiful and cruel Gertrude, a young widow whose previous husbands have killed themselves in despair. The Angel and the Sphinx (1897) is one of the most phantasmagorical and intense Romantic and Symbolist novels on the themes of femmes fatales, reincarnation and expiation. Penned by Edgar Schuré, the author of The Great Initiates (1889), it appeals to fans of flamboyant fantasy fiction as well as connoisseurs of Symbolist fiction.