The Vampire Armand

First trade edition, first printing. Signed by Rice on the title page in purple pen. Publisher's black cloth-backed paper-covered boards, spine lettered in silver, deckled fore edge; in the original pictorial dust jacket designed by Carol Devine Carson featuring La Primavera by Sandro Botticelli, lettered in white. Spine ends lightly bumped, else fine book; fine unclipped dust jacket. Overall, a sleek copy. The Vampire Armand, the sixth installation in Anne Rice's 13-book series The Vampire Chronicles, focuses in on the backstory of the eponymous and longstanding character in the series, Armand. Introduced as a 400-year-old vampire leading the Théâtre des Vampires coven in Interview with the Vampire, Armand was born in the Kyivan Rus in the 15th century, then going by the name Andrei. The vampire and Renaissance painter Marius de Romanus takes Andrei as an apprentice, renames him Amadeo, and eventually gives him the Dark Gift of turning him into a vampire. Amadeo later changes his name to Armand when he goes to Paris and creates his own coven, which Lestat first encountered in The Vampire Lestat (1985).…