Who decided summertime idleness and leisurely musings were mindless activities? Curiosity is only a flaw if one has yet to indulge in it...
A Few Summer Handpicks
This summer, feed your mind!
Who decided summertime idleness and leisurely musings were mindless activities? Curiosity is only a flaw if one has yet to indulge in it.
The more discerning among us relish the pleasures of free-ranging thought—when unshackled from daily obligations, the mind dares to stray beyond the bounds of practical knowledge.
For all such seekers, Le Feu Follet made forays into its catalogue—each an invitation to a different kind of intellectual journey…
A dismayed Flaubert desperately tries to create his play Le Sexe faible at the Odéon Theatre: "je vous assure qu'elle est honorable. Si nous échouons à l'Odéon c'est une affaire flambée..." [I assure you it is honorable. If we fail at the Odéon this affair is a bust...]
First edition, one of 75 deluxe copies printed on papier impérial du japon.
A very handsome copy of this Don Juan play, where he meets the Devil after being granted a ten-year deferment. Don Juan has a last chance to offer true love to just one woman.
Essais philosophiques sur les moeurs de divers animaux étrangers. Ou extraits des voyages de M***. en Asie
Veuve Tilliard Couturier fils • Paris 1783
First edition, illustrated with a frontispiece engraved by De Launay after Marillier, contemporary binding.
Foucher d'Obsonville set sail for the East Indies around 1753. From Smyrna, he travelled overland to Aleppo and reached Baghdad after a series of tumultuous adventures. From there, he descended the Tigris and the Shatt al-Arab, sailed across the Persian Gulf, and reached the eastern coast of India.
The diplomat and sinologist George Soulié de Morant (1878–1955) introduced the practical application of acupuncture to France in 1929, overcoming considerable resistance from the academic establishment.
Exceptional presentation copy inscribed and signed by Dominique De Roux: "For Romain Gary, because it's not just the first step that's hard, and now it's done. De Roux. Your article in LIFE is very beautiful."
Gary had indeed published a celebrated plea for the protection of nature, mankind and endangered species in Life Magazine entitled “Dear Elephant, Sir” (22 Dec. 1967).