Victor HUGO

First edition.

Contemporary half brown shagreen bindings, spines with four raised bands framed by blind fillets, gilt floral tools at head and tail, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, bookplates mounted at the head of the pastedowns, sprinkled edges.

A few minor spots of foxing, with press cuttings loosely inserted and leaving offsetting to the front endpapers of the first volume.

Signed autograph presentation inscription by Jules Claye, the printer of this work, to Ferdinand Taillefer on the front of the first volume: "... souvenir typographique à mon ancien et excellent collaborateur..."

First French edition, issued in Paris on 3 April 1862, simultaneously with the Belgian edition, here including the very rare suite of 20 engraved plates by Castelli and Neuville on heavy wove paper. This scarce suite was produced to illustrate the first edition of Les Misérables. It was sold separately, as a supplementary set, and is only very rarely encountered bound together with the volumes.
A particularly interesting copy, as it is composite, and perfectly illustrating the publisher’s commercial strategy, which divided publication into three issues (the first two volumes on 3 April, the following four on 15 May, and the final four on 30 June), as well as the story of the...

First illustrated edition, in the very first issue and complete in a single volume; a three-volume issue, more common and published later in the course of 1836, was subsequently produced. With a frontispiece title and 11 steel-engraved plates hors-texte on heavy wove paper, after Johannot, Boulanger, Raffet, Rogier & Rouargue, engraved by Finden, Staines… The work is attractively printed in an airy type with generous margins, closely following the original edition published in 1831. The plate entitled "De l'utilité des fenêtres" is present; according to Clouzot it is most often lacking, as it was printed later than the initial release of the work.
Contemporary full wine-coloured...

First edition, with no edition statement.
Contemporary half chocolate shagreen bindings, spines with raised bands; marbled paper boards, with laid paper endpapers and pastedowns. Spines evenly lightened. Edges rubbed. Wear to headcaps and bands. A few spots of foxing, notably on the fore-edge. A good copy.
Without doubt, just after The Man Who Laughs, Hugo’s greatest novelistic achievement, depicting on the island of Guernsey the struggle of a solitary man against the ocean.

Lettre autographe signée de Victor Hugo, écrite depuis Hauteville House, datée de la main de l'auteur du 7 juillet [1865 ?]. 1 pages à l'encre noire sur un feuillet de vergé bleu. Traces de plis transversaux inhérentes à l'envoi. Infimes trous causés par la pression de la plume de l'écrivain. Une légère tache transparente en pied.

Autograph letter signed by Victor Hugo to poet Algernon Swinburne, 1 page written in black ink on one sheet. Discreet folds, a small angular tear to upper left corner.
A rare and emphatic declaration of affection by Victor Hugo for the English people who granted him asylum and continue to applaud his writings. From Guernsey, Hugo writes to one of his most fervent British admirers, the pre-Raphaelite poet Swinburne, who considered Hugo the "first poet of [his] age", and the "spiritual ruler of the 19th century".

Autograph letter dated and signed by Victor Hugo, to his great friend and personal physician Emile Allix. 30 lines in black ink on two pages of a bifolium signed with the single letter "V", greatest mark of affection the writer could give, usually reserved for his two sons, his daughter, his wife and his friends Auguste Vacquerie and Paul Meurice.
Back in Guernsey in a deserted Hauteville House, Hugo was in the middle of writing Quatre Vingt Treize and acutely felt the absence of his close friends and family. He thanked his friend, the illustrious doctor Allix, a member of the circle of Jersey outlaws, who had also stayed at Hauteville House many...