Les mélancolies animales
Work illustrated by Charles Clérice.
Spine sunned with two lacks at head and foot, some foxing.
Do you have information to share about this place of publication?
First edition, one of 40 numbered copies on vélin pur fil paper, the tirage de tête (deluxe copies).
Full morocco, covers and spine preserved, slipcase, elegant binding signed by Semet & Plumelle.
Provenances: mostly from Robert Desprechins' library with his ex-libris drawn by Jean Cocteau, and by Louis de Sadeleer with his engraved ex-libris.
A very nice copy beautifully bound morocco signed by Semet & Plumelle.
Rare and highly sought-after first edition (...) of which only a portion of the copies contains a preface (cf. Clouzot). The important account of the lawsuit concerning The Lily of the Valley that precedes the novel was not retained in subsequent editions and is often lacking in a number of the copies published by Werdet.
Copy complete with both the preface and the account of the lawsuit that opposed Balzac to the publisher François Buloz. Contemporary half green sheepskin bindings, smooth spines decorated with gilt romantic typographical motifs, gilt fillets at heads and tails, marbled paper boards, paste paper endpapers and pastedowns, marbled edges, contemporary romantic bindings. Some minor foxing, bookseller's descriptive label pasted at head of front pastedown of the first volume.
Exceptional copy in an elegant contemporary binding.
First edition, one of 15 numbered copies on Hollande paper, the leading copies.
This copy with the original frontispiece lithograph by André Masson.
Hors-texte illustrations by André Masson.
A very good and rare copy.
First definitive editions, partly original.
Bound in red half-shagreen with corners, spine with four raised bands decorated with blind-stamped panels and fillets, the entwined monogram of Jules Hetzel at the foot, uncut copy, contemporary binding.
A few occasional spots of foxing.
Inscribed by the author to Jules Hetzel, “as a token of the author’s friendship.”
In the 1840s, Balzac “contributed to a collective volume illustrated with Grandville’s vignettes, Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux, issued in parts by a new publisher, Pierre-Jules Hetzel (1814–1886), who was to become a friend and play a crucial role in the consortium of publishers of La Comédie humaine. [Balzac] also assisted Hetzel in drafting texts signed ‘P.-J. Stahl,’ the publisher’s pseudonym.” (Roger Pierrot, Honoré de Balzac, Paris, Fayard, 1994)
An outstanding copy, inscribed by Balzac, in a charming contemporary binding.