Victor HUGO

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 times: "Doctor, friend, dear Allix, your letters bring me joy and serenity in my work and in my solitude". In Paris, the doctor took care of Hugo's beloved children in poor health: Allix had taken in and placed Adèle Hugo in Mme Rivet's asylum in Saint-Mandé, after her disastrous stay in Barbados and failed attempt to woo the Colonel Pinson: "Oh, bring me all my dear absent ones and you will see how our island will be in bloom [...]. Alas, there will always be one missing. This will be the black prison of my life. Thank you again for taking care of her. Could you be so kind as to pay the next term (17 March to 17 June) to Rivet on my behalf?" Allix looks after his son François-Victor, who succumbs to tuberculosis in December of the same year: "We read your letters at dessert at Madame Drouet's, and if you could only see how much we love you! I hope my [François-]Victor is getting better and better, and I'm waiting for him, and for them, and for you". Attentive to the health of young children, a cause to which he would devote a large part of his medical career, Allix also took care of Victor Hugo's precious granddaughter: "You have showered little Jeanne and my old heart with joy. V."

An exceptional missive from the writer, waiting for his loved ones to return so that he could share the view of his island in bloom, where so many of his masterpieces were written. He wrote to Allix, a fervent republican and the family's personal doctor, who was at his wife Adèle's side in her final moments, looked after his children and signed the writer's own death certificate in 1885.

First edition of Les Hommes d'aujo­urd'hui (33 issues lacking out of 469). Five volumes bound in light blue half-cloth, smooth spines, blue morocco ti­tle labels decorated with double filets, marbled paper boards (4 volumes). The color title pages have been preserved and bound in. Marginal tears without damage to the text (no. 163; no. 165; no. 184, p. 2). Mar­ginal restorations without damage to text on 8 leaves be­tween nos. 214 and 223. Two leaves of no. 224 backed. Mar­ginal tear with some paper missing (no. 345, p.1). Format of quires in the first vol­ume varies; some are trimmed more than others.
First edition of Les Femmes du jour, very rare complete collection in 11 issues published between 1886 and 1892 (the last very rare Réjane issue appeared in 1892, six years after the other 10). Bound in half red cloth, smooth spine, mid­night-blue morocco title labels framed in gilt, gilt title length­wise, marbled paper boards.

An impressive gal­lery of prominent 19th century women and men carica­tured and described by the foremost avant-garde artists and writers of the time.