Jacques Collin de Plancy

Jacques Albin Simon Collin de Plancy (28 January 1793 in Plancy-l'Abbaye – 1881 in Paris) was a French occultist, demonologist and writer.

Collin de Plancy followed the tradition of many previous demonologists of cataloguing demons by name and title of nobility, as it happened with grimoires like Pseudomonarchia Daemonum and The Lesser Key of Solomon.

In 1822, it was advertised as: It is considered a major work documenting beings, characters, books, deeds and causes which pertain to the manifestations and magic of trafficking with Hell; divinations, occult sciences, grimoires, marvels, errors, prejudices, traditions, folktales, the various superstitions, and generally all manner of marvellous, surprising, mysterious, and supernatural beliefs.

In 1846, he published a two-volume work entitled Dictionnaire Sciences Occultes et des Idées superstitieuses,[3] another listing of demons.

Jacques Collin de Plancy was the father of Victor Collin de Plancy (1853–1924), who, for nearly a decade, starting in 1884, was French Minister to Korea and whose collected art works and books became part of the core of the Korean collections of the French Bibliothèque Nationale and the Musée Guimet in Paris.

Illustration from Diable peint par lui-même (1825) depicting Collin de Plancy, reclining on his bed, having a discussion with the devil .
Cover of Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal (1826).