Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Philippe Auguste Mathias, comte de, 1838-89, French novelist. His works, in the romantic style, are often fantastic in plot and filled with mystery and horror. Important among them are the drama Axel (revision, 1890), the novel L'Éve future (1886), and the short-story collection, Contes cruels (1883, tr. Sardonic Tales, 1927).