Marissa Meyer’s The House Saphir is a reimagining of “La Barbe bleue” (Bluebeard), a French fairytale first published by Charles Perrault in 1697. The original tale warns against female curiosity through the story of a wealthy man who murders his wives and hides their bodies in a forbidden room. Meyer modernizes these themes of patriarchal violence and hidden horrors through the characters of Count Bastien Saphir, a ghost whose legacy of murdering his wives haunts his descendant, and Mallory Fontaine, the dangerously curious woman who is a mix of con artist, detective, and witch.

The novel alludes to other versions and likely sources for Perrault’s Bluebeard tale, such as the legend of the historical figure Conomor the Cursed or Count Comorre (c. 540), a Briton king who killed four of his wives. In the novel, Comorre is the city where House Saphir is located, and Triphine, Bastien’s first wife, is named after Conomor’s fifth wife who escapes, Tréphine. Conomor was known to be a werewolf, and this creature is one of the first monsters to attack Mallory. In addition, the monster hunter Fitcher alludes to the Brothers Grimm tale, “Fitcher’s Bird” (1812), a German version of the Bluebeard tale in which the husband is a sorcerer and the wife escapes by disguising herself as a bird.

Many of these plot elements appear in Meyer’s retelling, creating a narrative that pays homage to the various iterations of the dark tale while drawing from a broader tradition of French folklore. In the “Glossary of Monsters” that opens the novel, the author’s note states that the supernatural creatures are “inspired by traditional French folklore” (ix), grounding the fantasy elements in a specific cultural mythology with creatures like the Voirloup (werewolf) and lesser-known figures like the Cheval Mallet (demon horse), and Lou Carcohl (snail serpent). By interweaving the famous Bluebeard narrative with these folkloric monsters, Meyer creates a uniquely French fantasy setting where fairytale horror and mythological threats coexist.