Ailing Literature

First editions of two alchemical texts by the Rouen merchant and scholar Jean Le Pelletier, bound together. A copy with numerous early marginal annotations in ink.

Half tan calf, paste-paper boards, smooth spine decorated with gilt fillets, gilt title, author and date to spine, red edges. Rubbing and soiling to binding, joints partially split, head of spine damaged, light ink stains to edges, occasional small losses to a few leaves without loss of text, an 8 cm marginal tear without loss to page 55 of the second work.

Two annotated works bound together, devoted to the alkahest, an enigmatic alchemical substance reputed to dissolve all matter.

Second edition, largely original, as it is considerably expanded (cf. Caillet 2273).

This edition is not cited by Quérard. Not in Blake. NUC: 3 copies.

Rare copy preserved in its original pink wrappers with printed spine label, untrimmed; covers slightly worn with a few corner losses, spine splitting at foot.

The first edition, published anonymously and without publisher’s address, appeared in 1784 [i.e. 1785].

"C'est dans cet ouvrage que le marquis de Puységur fit connaître la découverte qu'il venait de faire (mai 1784) des phénomènes qu'il désigna sous le nom de somnambulisme artificiel. Plusieurs cures importantes minutieusement observées et dûment...

Autograph note by François René de Chateaubriand, 12 lines in black ink on a bifolium, addressed to Madame Amédée de Duras, rejoicing in her improved health.
A tear with loss, due to the seal having been broken to facilitate reading the note.
"Mde de CH[ateaubriand]. me dit de vous répondre: si je meurs, madame, ce sera à vos pieds le matin. Non pas à midi, mais à trois heures et demie. Je me porte à merveille chez ma soeur. Que cela ne soit pas vous, mais mde de Lévis qui m'ait vu perdre ma longue barbe er mon mouchoir turc. Ne venez pas, vous ne devriez pas venir. Mde de Ch[ateaubriand] est inconsolable... "

Autograph letter dated and signed by Emile Zola, addressed to his friend the physician Maurice de Fleury, dated in his hand October 15, 1893. 1 page 1/4, 19 lines in black ink on a double sheet. Horinzontal and vertical folds due to mailing. Stain on verso, not affecting the text.

A most unusual invitation from the master of Naturalism, who wishes to organize a luncheon with two eminent specialists in nervous diseases: "Vous êtes bien aimable de m'inviter à déjeuner. Mais cela va vous faire perdre du temps et à moi aussi [...] pourquoi ne prendriez-vous pas un rendez-vous pour deux heures et demie par exemple, avec M. Gille de la Tourette, soit jeudi, soit...

Original autograph letter by the Marquis de Sade, consists of 27 lines of relatively tight handwriting. Most likely written to his wife, as evidenced by the letter's origin from Sade's family. The letter is physically composed of two glued pieces of paper. On the verso the Marquis wrote 19 lines and scrupulously crossed them out - a few words and letters are still quite visible.
Cited in Maurice Lever's biography, 'Donatien Alphonse François, marquis de Sade', Paris, Fayard, 1991, p. 631.

First edition. A few head-piece vignettes, ornamental bandeaux, decorated initials, and tailpieces.

Contemporary full mottled sheep, spine with five raised bands, gilt panels and fleurons between the bands, gilt-lettered tan leather label, doublures of French curl paper, red edges. Upper corners lightly bumped, a few rubbed patches and small losses, a dampstain to the first leaves, a few minor paper losses to some leaves.

Published several decades before the results of Edward Jenner's research on vaccination, this collection brings together the principal texts on inoculation, the procedure that constitutes its direct forerunner.

First edition.

Marbled paper wrappers, marbled edges. Wrappers slightly creased, a few ink spots, a dampstain to the upper part of the title page that fades progressively on the following pages.

First edition, one of 80 numbered copies on Montval paper, the deluxe issue.
A handsome copy with wide margins.

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

Includes the subscribers’ list and the foreword, which will be removed for the second issue when the remainder of this edition was bought by another publisher, Dion-Lambert. It also features the pagination error in volume two: page 164 instead of 364.

With a scribal letter...

First edition of Jacques Le Meilleur’s medical thesis.

Our copy is presented disbound.

Waterstaining at head throughout, not affecting the text.

Autograph letter dated and signed by Jacques Mesrine, dated Saturday September 22, 1976, 67 lines in blue ink on one page recto verso addressed to his love of the time, Jeanne Schneider, thanks to whom the manuscript of Instinct de mort was discreetly smuggled out of prison.
Jacques Mesrine, then incarcerated at Fleury-Mérogis prison and deprived of human warmth, is enthusiastic about all the visits he receives in the visiting room, thus dispelling the myth of the antisocial bandit devoid of human feelings: "And after that they'll say I'm a savage! No, quite the contrary, and people who have had contact with me want to...

First edition, one of 80 numbered copies on Montval paper, ours unnumbered but properly justified with Montval at the foot of the spine and below the print run justification, deluxe copy.
Handsome full-margined copy.

“Yes I have sarcasm in my words, yes I do not know how to flatter and bend my back, how to beg in official salons […] I am nothing but a braying schemer, but if I had submitted - yes I would be comfortable."

Long autograph letter dated August 1896 and signed by Paul Gauguin to painter Daniel de Monfreid. Four pages in black ink on two lined sheets.
Small tears to margins not affecting the text, traces of folds inherent to sending.
In the midst of his descent into hell, abandoned in his Tahitian artificial paradise, Gauguin feels cursed : “Definitely, I was born under a bad...

Autograph letter signed to Madame Catusse, 12,6x20,4cm, 3 pages on a double leaf.

Autograph letter signed by Marcel Proust, probably addressed to Madame Catusse. The recipient and date have been determined by Proust scholar Jean-Yves Tadié. Three pages in black ink on a double leaf edged in black. A fold inherent to the mailing.
A sombre and admirable letter steeped in Proustian melancholy. The future author of In Search of Lost Time feels more than ever the loss of his mother during the New Year period. The famously generous Proust also asks his faithful confidante Madame Catusse to buy a gift for the Straus couple, whose wife inspired...

Autograph letter signed in black ink, addressed to his mother and dated “Sunday morning the 14th.” A few underlinings, deletions and corrections by the author.
Formerly in the collection of Armand Godoy, n°188.
A fading Baudelaire: “The state of disgust in which I find myself makes everything seem even worse.”
Drawn by the promise of epic fame, Baudelaire went to Belgium in April 1864 for a few conferences and in the hope of a fruitful meeting with the publishers of Les Misérables, Lacroix and Verboeckhoven. The meeting didn't...