Eugène

Rare and sought-after first edition, first issue.

Includes the subscribers' list and the foreword, later removed when the remainder of this edition passed into the hands of another publisher, Dion-Lambert. It also features the pagination error in volume two: page 164 instead of 364. 

 

Black half-morocco bindings, smooth spines with double gilt fillets and double blind-stamped compartments, black paper boards, slight superficial rubbing to some boards, marbled paper pastedowns and endpapers, sprinkled edges; contemporary bindings. Sparse foxing.

 

Outstanding copy in a contemporary binding of this masterpiece expertly described by Proust : "And when Chateaubriand even as he laments, allows the marvellous and transcendental being that he is to soar aloft we smile, for at the very moment he declares himself to have been annihilated he makes his escape, he lives with a life in which death is not." (Against Sainte-Beuve and other essays)

Rare and sought-after first edition, first issue, with exceptionally added plates from the first illustrated edition, publisher that same year. 34 full-page engravings after Demoraine, Gagnier, Staal and engraved by F. Delannoy.

Includes the subscribers' list and the foreword, lacking in the second issue when the remainder of this edition was sold to another publisher, Dion-Lambert. It also features the pagination error in volume two: page 164 instead of 364. With a letter by the author, bearing his autograph signature, written and dated 14 April 1839, in the hand of his secretary. One page written in black ink on a leaf. Slightly darkened at the upper edge, with occasional foxing, and the usual folds from postal handling.

With an exceptional, prophetic and macabre letter by François-René de Chateaubriand: "mais moi je suis mort, absolument mort et s'il me fallait écrire un mot dans un journal, j'aimerais mieux être enseveli à mille pieds sous terre." ["but I am dead, utterly dead, and if I were required to write a single word in a newspaper, I would rather be buried a thousand feet underground."]

Signed with the author’s faltering hand, this apparently unpublished letter was penned by his secretary: "Vous connaissez la main de [Hyacinthe] Pilorge que j'employe pour remplacer la mienne souffrante de la goutte" ["You will recognise the hand of [Hyacinthe] Pilorge, whom I employ to replace my own, suffering from gout,"] the author explains in the introduction to the letter.

Black half-morocco bindings, flat spines with double gilt fillets and double blind-stamped compartments, black paper boards, slight superficial rubbing to some boards, marbled paper pastedowns and endpapers, sprinkled edges; contemporary bindings. Sparse foxing.

Eugène & Victor Penaud frères, Paris 1849-1850, 13,7x22,5cm, 12 volumes, half calf binding.
Rare and sought after first edition, first printing.
Half blond calf binding, spines gilt and blind tooled, black Russian morocco title and volume pieces, marbled boards, mould-made paste downs and endpapers.
This copy is complete with the "avertissement" to the reader and the list of subscribers, removed from most copies after transferring the rights to publisher Dion-Lambert.
Some foxing throughout the entire set, sometimes more pronounced to a few leaves; a few discrete restorations on the bindings, skilfully restored margins on pages 335-336 (vol. 5).
32 illustrations by Staal and Moraine (Clouzot mentions only 30) exceptionally added to this copy.
An autograph letter by Chateaubriand to the Duchess Amédée de Duras mounted at the head of the first volume. 7 lines on one leaf, trace of wax stamp and autograph address on the back.
"I wanted to go yesterday evening to your house. Mrs. de Ch.[ateaubriand] was ill and had to stay. Do we know anything about the unfortunate young man? I beg you for a word. I am leaving in the morning at eleven o'clock for the Valley with the Giant (?); I would like it to be with you. Thursday 9 a.m." "J'ai voulu aller hier au soir chez vous. Mme de Ch. s'est touvée mal il a fallu rester. Sait-on quelque chose du malheureux jeune homme ? Un mot je vous en supplie. Je pars le matin à onze heures pour la Vallée avec le Géant (?) ; je voudrais bien que ce fut avec vous. Jeudi 9 heures du matin"
Chateaubriand writes to Claire de Duras, one of the most important women in his life. Only daughter of the Girondin Count of Kersaint, she was a cousin by marriage of Chateaubriand's mistress Natalie de Noailles. Confidante and soon rival of Madame Récamier, Chateaubriand's great love, Claire de Duras was the most faithful of his admirers and fell under his spell from their first meeting at the Château de Méréville in April 1808. The physically unprepossessing Duchess was quickly spurned by the writer who was then still under Madame de Noailles' influence. Nevertheless, she concluded a friendly agreement with him and was an attentive sister for years, holding the privilege of being first reader of many of his works, notably Les Aventures du Dernier Abencérage [The Last of the Abencerrajes], inspired by his love affair with the Countess of Noailles. For her part, the Duchess managed to cope with this unrequited love despite her consuming passion for Chateaubriand, who was the subject of her best-selling novel Ourika, about the tragic and impossible love of a young African woman for a Frenchman.
Rare first printing copy with an autograph letter by the author, and a complete set of engravings of one of the most important texts of 19th-century French literature, set in elegant contemporary bindings.