First edition.
Contemporary full marbled and polished brown calf binding. Spine richly gilt in compartments with raised bands, gilt roll tooling at head- and tailbands. Red morocco title labels, tan morocco volume labels. Headcaps of volumes I and V worn; headcap of volume VI torn off. Upper joint of volume I split at foot. Fourteen corners rubbed. Occasional minor foxing, heavier browning to endpapers and half-titles.
First edition of the French translation by Mlle Saubry: the first English edition appeared on the same date.
Bradel bindings in full navy blue boards. Smooth spines decorated with fillets, roulette at tail. Gilt titles and volume labels. Spines uniformly darkened. Signs of rubbing to headcaps and corners and edges. Pale scattered foxing on laid paper that has remained fresh. In volume III, leaf 91 detached.
The work was established by the author from her own journal written during the years 1819 and 1820. The journey begins with the Alps, then through Piedmont, Lombardy, Genoa, Piacenza, Parma, Bologna, Modena, Tuscany, Rome, Naples and Venice. Beyond being a classic narrative of a journey to Italy, even if its perception by an English woman is particular, the book shines through certain aspects quite new at the time, as Lady Morgan casts a political eye on everything she sees, the view of an independent woman with a liberal and democratic spirit. In this regard, the work caused a stir upon its publication and provoked strong reactions in public opinion in Italy, precisely in the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia and the State of Lombardy-Venetia, whose repressive politics the author had denounced. Furthermore, this political aim and this criticism were from the outset in the author's baggage since her book, not yet written, was already an editorial project. Charles Morgan, her husband, took care to nourish the book with statistics and precise notes. This Italy of Lady Morgan is in any case a most precious and interesting testimony on the Italy of the Restoration. The narrative was praised upon its publication by Byron for the accuracy of its observations.
The second édition originale on ordinary paper. Fifteen hundred copies had been printed, plus 4 copies on chine paper, and a few other copies on hollande and on vélin.
Half brown morocco, slightly sunned spine with five raised bands, marbled paper boards double ruled in gilt, mould made paper pastedowns and endpapers, gilt top edge. Foxing. Complete with the portrait of the author by Félix Bracquemond (often missing), here in second state on papier chine pasted on the page.
Mistakenly considered as “partly original”, this edition was entirely revised by the author, with 35 newly composed poems and 55 “deeply rewritten” poems [profondément remaniés] among the 129 poems. This true new first edition of Les Fleurs du Mal is the culmination of Baudelaire's grand œuvre and the only text of reference for foreign language translations.
Second collective first edition, with continuous pagination, containing for the first time Phèdre, the Discours prononcé à l'Académie françoise à la réception de Messieurs de Corneille et de Bergeret and the Idylle sur la paix.(Brunet, IV, 1077). Work illustrated with 12 figures including 2 frontispieces, most signed by François Chauveau; the frontispiece of the first volume engraved by Le Brun.
Edition shared between Barbin, Denys Thierry and Pierre Trabouillet.
Full midnight blue morocco binding from the late 19th century signed at the foot of the pastedown Thibaron-Joly (Former worker of Trautz, Thibaron partnered with the gilder Joly in 1874). Spine with raised bands decorated. Boards à la Du Seuil, executed with a central rectangle formed by a triple fillet, with fleurons in the corners followed by a frame of triple fillets. Rich decorative gilt board-edges. Edges gilt. Minimal traces of rubbing. A few rare leaves slightly more yellowed, otherwise, magnificent copy in a condition close to perfection.
Blue sheepskin bookplate featuring a dolphin in a shield: Bibliothèque Génard.
Rare collective edition after the first published in 1676 by Claude Barbin, important and sought after for the variants and additions it offers.
"Si quelque part au monde le coeur de la liberté continue à battre, s'il est un lieu d'où ses coups nous parviennent mieux frappés que de partout ailleurs, nous savons tous que ce lieu est l'Espagne." ["If anywhere in the world the heart of freedom continues to beat, if there is a place from which its beats reach us more clearly struck than from anywhere else, we all know that this place is Spain."]
"N'oublions pas que le monstre qui pour un temps nous tient encore à sa merci s'est fait les griffes en Espagne. C'est là qu'il a commencé à faire suinter ses poisons : le mensonge, la division, la démoralisation, la disparition, qui pour la première fois il a fait luire ses buissons de fusils au petit matin, à la tombée du soir ses chambres de torture. Les Hitler, les Mussolini, les Staline, ont eu là leur laboratoire de vivisection, leur école de travaux pratiques. Les fours crématoires, les mines de sel, les escaliers glissants de la N.K.V.D., l'extension à perte de vue du monde concentrationnaire ont été homologués à partir de là. C'est d'Espagne que part l'égouttement de sang indélébile témoignant d'une blessure qui peut être mortelle pour le monde. C'est en Espagne que pour la première fois aux yeux de tous, le droit de vivre libre a été frappé." ["Let us not forget that the monster that still holds us at its mercy for a time sharpened its claws in Spain. It is there that it began to make its poisons seep: lies, division, demoralization, disappearance, where for the first time it made its thickets of rifles gleam in the early morning, its torture chambers at nightfall. The Hitlers, the Mussolinis, the Stalins, had their vivisection laboratory there, their school of practical work. The crematory ovens, the salt mines, the slippery stairs of the N.K.V.D., the endless extension of the concentration camp world were approved from there. It is from Spain that flows the indelible dripping of blood testifying to a wound that may be mortal for the world. It is in Spain that for the first time in everyone's eyes, the right to live free was struck down."]
