Major works that have marked the history of thought.
First editions, often extemely rare, and beautiful antiquarian editions of literary masterpieces hold a special place in the ideal library of a book collector.
First edition, one of 796 numbered copies on pur fil paper, the only grands papiers (deluxe copies) after 109 reimposed.
Full green board Bradel binding, title piece in glazed yellow calf, covers and spine preserved, contemporary binding.
Presentation copy inscribed by André Breton: “à Edmond Jaloux, hommage très dévoué. André Breton” “To Edmond Jaloux, a very devoted tribute. André Breton”.
Edmond Jaloux, who was one of the earliest promoters of surrealism, wrote at the release of this atypical novel and misunderstood by most of his contemporaries, the most laudatory article of the time, concluding with this admiring admission of the impotence of criticism in the face of the modernity of Breton's work; “this examination, I can sense it, remains outside the book and in no ways gives you the feeling of intense poetry, of great, free and true poetry which absolves Nadja and which affects your mind [...] like an extremely intoxicating alcohol, with this difference that no alcohol gives you dreams that stimulate the moving prose of Monsieur André Breton.”
Precious grand papier (deluxe) copy with a handwritten inscription from the author and filled with the original article by Edmond Jaloux pasted on two loose double leaves.
Second collected edition of Victor Hugo's works published by Furne after the Renduel edition of 1833-1836; it is illustrated with 35 steel engravings. Les contemplations published in 1856 (first edition with a mention of second edition) was added to this edition. The Furne edition spans from 1840 to 1846. Le Rhin indeed appears in first collected edition at this date.
This edition, originally published in installments, was verified and corrected by Hugo himself. It was initially intended to form only 12 volumes (which are most often found alone); volume 9 bis was added later where Ruy Blas is reprinted, and the 3 volumes of Le Rhin following. Furne had bought out the Renduel bookshop, the first publisher of Hugo's complete works from 1832 to 1840, as Hugo's writings then stood.
Contemporary half tawny shagreen binding. Spine with raised bands decorated with 4 fleurons in blind-tooled compartments. Gilt titles and volume numbers. Light traces of rubbing. Some pale scattered foxing on an overall very fresh set, on white paper, very attractive. The binder did not number the entire set, only the works occupying several volumes.
Handsome set, very homogeneous.
Details: Volume I: Odes et ballades. XLV+387 pages, frontispiece and 1 plate
Volume II: Odes et ballades - Les orientales. 446 pages, frontispiece and 1 plate
Volume III: Les feuilles d'automne - Les chants du crépuscule. 423 pages, frontispiece and one plate
Volume IV: Les voix intérieures - Les rayons et les ombres. 434 pages, frontispiece and one plate
Volume V: Notre-Dame de Paris 1. 372 pages, frontispiece, title and 3 plates
Volume VI: Notre-Dame de Paris 2. 426 pages, frontispiece and 6 plates. (This second volume is dated 1850, while the first is dated 1844)
Volume VII: Cromwell, drame en cinq actes. 500 pages, frontispiece and 4 plates
Volume VIII: Hernani - Marion de Lorme - Le Roi s'amuse. 513 pages, frontispiece and 4 plates
Volume IX: Lucrèce Borgia - Marie Tudor - Angelo. 449 pages, frontispiece and 4 plates
Volume X: La Esmeralda - Ruy Blas - Les Burgraves. 390 pages
Volume XI: Han d'Islande. 583 pages
Volume XII: Bug-Jargal - Le Dernier jour d'un condamné. VI+443 pages
Volume XIII: Littérature et philosophie mêlées. 406 pages.
Volume XIV: Le Rhin 1. 381 pages,
Volume XV: Le Rhin 2. 446 pages
Volume XVI: Le Rhin 3. 352 pages
Volume XVII: Les Contemplations. Autrefois 1830-1843. Statement of second edition. 359 pages
Volume XVIII: Les Contemplations. Aujourd'hui 1843-1856. 408 pages.
Volume X was published after Volume XII and bears the volume number IXbis on the half-title, Volumes XI and XII bear the volume numbers X and XI, always on the half-titles.
First French edition, translated by William Hugues, under the direction of P. Lorrain.
Contemporary half red shagreen binding. Spine with raised bands decorated with 3 fleurons. Gilt titles and volume labels. Light traces of rubbing. Very fresh set, free from foxing except for some pale browning on the first text page of volume 1.
A work of great darkness, Little Dorrit is the second of Dickens's three political and social novels. It is a denunciation of Victorian society obsessed with wealth and power. G. B. Shaw would judge the novel "More seditious than Karl Marx's Capital". The novel begins in Marseille. One of Dickens's great works.
Fourth collective edition for the first part and third for the second and third parts, published by Corneille himself. Our copy is adorned with the frontispiece of the first two editions (dated 1645), and the portrait of Corneille by Michel Lasne, dated 1644.
Later bindings in full blue morocco, Jansenist spines with five raised bands, endpapers and pastedowns framed with gilt dentelles of marbled paper, all edges gilt, marbled paper slipcases bordered with morocco, bindings signed by Alix.
Rare and beautiful copy elegantly bound.
New edition. Title pages in red and black. Armillary sphere on the title of volume I, fleuron or cipher on the second volume. Wood engraving of the "Divine Bottle", Volume II, p.327.
Contemporary full brown calf binding. Decorated raised-band spine. Tawny morocco title-label, tawny calf volume label. One lack at head of volume 1. Scuffing to headcaps and raised bands. Overall rubbed. Some foxing. Good set overall.
These works contain: The Life of François Rabelais; Particulars of the life and customs of François Rabelais; Author's Prologue; I. Book of the life, deeds and heroic sayings of Gargantua; II. and III. Books of the heroic deeds and sayings of Pantagruel; Vol.II: IV. Book of the life, deeds, &c. of Pantagruel; V. Book of the Navigations of said Pantagruel, the Ringing Island, the Island of the Apedests, with the Oracle of the Divine Bacbuc & the word of the Bottle; Pantagrueline prognostication [chapters I-X]; Epistle of the Limousin Pantagruel; The Philosophical Cream; Two epistles to two old women of different customs; Alphabet of the author François.
First edition, printed on vélin d'Angoulême paper, with the usual misprints and including the six condemned poems, one of the few copies given to the author and “intended for friends who do not deliver literary services”.
Full emerald morocco binding, signed by Marius Michel, original wrappers preserved.
Exceptional inscription to a childhood friend, banker and intellectual, one of the rare contemporary inscriptions that were not motivated by judicial necessity or editorial interests.
Indeed, even the few examples on papier hollande were largely devoted to strategic gifts in order to counter or reduce the wrath of justice that, in June 1857, had not yet returned its decision. Poulet-Malassis will hold a bitter memory of it: “Baudelaire got his hands on all thick paper copies and addressed them to more or less influential people as a means of corruption. Since they have not got him out of trouble, I believe he would do well to ask for them back.”
Baudelaire's correspondence makes it possible to define quite precisely the different types of inscriptions the poet made on the publication of his collection. He himself sent a list to de Broise to mention those to whom the press deliveries were dedicated, mainly possible judicial intercessors and influential literary critics. The poet then requires “twenty-five [copies] on ordinary paper, intended for friends who do not deliver literary services.” A letter to his mother tells us that he only got twenty. Some of them were sent in June 1857 to his friends, including one for Louis-Ludovic Tenré. Others were saved by the poet or offered late like the ones for Achille Bourdilliat and Jules de Saint-Félix.
If Tenré, this childhood friend whom Baudelaire has just found again in December 1856, is honored with one of the poet's rare personal copies of the Fleurs du mal publication, the three misprints he immediately noticed having been carefully corrected by hand, it is not on account of a service delivered or in anticipation of an immediate benefit. However, as always with Baudelaire, neither did he send his masterpiece to his boarding companion from Louis-le-Grand school as a simple “reminder of good friendship.”
As early as 1848, Louis-Ludovic Tenré took over from his father, the publisher Louis Tenré, who, like other major publishers, moved into investment, providing loans and discounts exclusively for those in the book industry. These bookseller-bankers played a key role in the fragile publishing economy and contributed to the extreme diversity of literary production in the nineteenth century, supporting the activities of small but bold publishers and liquidating other major judicial clashes.
In December 1856, Baudelaire tells Poulet-Malassis that he had deposited an expired banknote with this “old school mate,” which Tenré, out of friendship, agreed to accept. It was the initial advance for “the printing of one thousand copies [of a collection] of verses entitled Les Fleurs du Mal.” With this copy hot off the presses, Baudelaire then offers Tenré the precious result of the work discounted by his new banker. It is the beginning of a long financial relationship. Amongst all of Baudelaire's discounters, Louis-Ludovic Tenré will be the poet's favorite and the only one to whom an autographed work will be sent.
Nicolas Stokopf, in his work Les Patrons du Second Empire, banquiers et financiers parisiens, dedicates a chapter to Louis-Ludovic Tenré and evokes the privileged relationship between the poet and this unusual and scholarly financier, Paraguay consul and Latin America specialist, also the author of a significant work, Les états américains, published for the 1867 Exposition Universelle, of which he was a commissioner.
Even the poet's countless financial hazards will never cause lasting damage to their agreement. The trust this publisher's son he puts in Baudelaire is down to Tenré's interest in literature, as is evidenced by this excellently preserved copy given to him by Baudelaire. Quoted many times in his correspondence, and in his “carnet” – a kind of poetic diary written between 1861 and 1863 – Louis-Ludovic Tenré quickly became the main financial interlocutor for the poet whose life is, nevertheless, affected by the fear of his creditors.
“There is an astounding incoherence between Baudelaire's blinding intelligence and the chaos of his material life. He spends his time in his correspondence chasing money, his letters are almost exclusively about that. He is incapable of managing a budget of 200 francs per month and is in debt everywhere, even though he is not entitled to it, since he is under guardianship. Worse still: his annuity serves him only to pay the interest on the loans he takes out at very high rates. It is a vicious circle: he himself digs his own financial black hole.” (Baudelaire, Marie-Christine Natta).
The 1857 signed copies of Fleurs du Mal are amongst the most prestigious works and have for a long time had a prominent place in major private collections (Marquis du Bourg de Bozas, Jacques Doucet, Sacha Guitry, Pierre Berès, Colonel Sickles, Pierre Bergé, Bernard Loliée, Pierre Leroy, Jean Bonna, etc.).
This work's utmost importance in the history of literature, well beyond French literature, as well as the particular history of its publication, have contributed to the early interest in the first edition and even more so for the rare copies given out by the author.
In 1860, during the auction of all of Custine's property, who died in August 1857, the poems of a salacious poet dedicated to a writer of poor moral standards were little appreciated. However, by 1865, Baudelaire himself states that “for two years we have been asking everywhere [Les Fleurs du Mal], and in sales, they make quite a lot”. And by 1873 and 1874, the Gautier and Daumier library sales mention their precious copies and “the handwritten ex-dono” with which they are adorned.
Since then, the inscribed copies have been described and referenced, which has enabled bibliographers to count and allocate 55 copies of the first edition of Fleurs du Mal that were handed out by Baudelaire. Amongst them, some have been destroyed (like Mérimée's copy, during a fire at his home), others are only mentioned in the correspondence of the person to whom they are dedicated, but were never known (particularly the copies given to Flaubert, Deschamps, Custine and Molènes), several of them only made a brief appearance in the nineteenth century before disappearing (amongst which we include the copies of Honoré Daumier, Louis Ulbach and Champfleury). Finally, some major international institutions, libraries and museums acquired them very early on for their collections (including those of Saint-Victor, Le Maréchal, Nadar, Pincebourde, etc.).
Since the Second World War, only thirty or so copies of Fleurs du Mal featuring an inscription by Baudelaire have appeared in libraries, on public sale or in bookshop catalogs, each time being subject to specific attention from all of the professionals, international institutions and bibliophiles that have been informed.
Perfectly set, with its wrappers, in a Jansenist binding by one of the major bookbinders of the end of the 19th century, Louis-Ludovic Tenré's very beautiful copy, one of twenty reserved for the author, enriched with precious handwritten corrections and given by Baudelaire on publication, appears as a remarkable witness to the specific conditions under which this legendary work was published.
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 complete collected edition and first illustrated edition. The first edition of Dom Garcie de Navarre, L'Impromptu de Versailles, Dom Juan ou le Festin de Pierre, Les Amans magnifiques, and La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas. With thirty copper engraved illustrations by Jean Sauvé after Pierre Brassart, 9 of them included in the pagination.
19th-century red full morocco binding, spines with five raised bands, date gilt at foot, double gilt fillets to edges of covers and spine-ends, large inned gilt dentelle, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Bindings signed M. Lortic.
An exceptional copy of the famous 1682 edition housed in a very elegant binding by Marcelin Lortic, who succeeded his father Pierre-Marcellin Lortic - Baudelaire's binder.
First edition, one of 50 copies on vergé de Hollande, only deluxe issue (with 10 copies on papier Chine).
Contemporary dark red shagreen, probably a publisher's binding, spine in six compartments with gilt fleurons, covers with double gilt fillet frame and gilt fleurons to corners, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, edge of covers ruled in gilt, gilt roulette to head-pieces, top edge gilt, slipcase edged in dark red shagreen.
A very rare and handsome copy perfectly set in a contemporary binding.
A handsome illustrated edition and one of the first printed by Gabriele Giolito de Ferrari, dedicated to the Dauphin of France. It has a superb engraved title with Giolito's printer's device (a phoenix being reborn from its ashes on a globe marked with the printer's initials), 56 attractive woodcuts and numerous large ornate capitals, as well as a portrait of Ariosto after Titian in a medallion at the end of the poem, and two states of the printer's device.
The end of the work is made up of a vocabulary of obscure words and an explanation of the difficult passages in the work compiled by Lodovico Dolce, with a separate title and not included in the pagination. Giolito published more than twenty books in thirteen years of printing – this is the third edition of this work, the first appearing in 1542 and the second in 1543.
Printed in round Roman type, double column.
Late 17th or early 18th century red morocco, spine richly gilt in six compartments, one compartment marked with “lettres rondes [round Roman type]”. Covers with a frame of triple gilt fillets, gilt roulette frame to insides of covers, all edges gilt. Binding a little rubbed, faint dampstaining to end of volume.
A handsome copy in a lovely red morocco binding.
First edition on ordinary paper.
Half-forest green shagreen contemporary binding, spine with five raised bands, marbled paper board and endpapers, bookplate pasted on one guard.
Some slight, minor foxing.
Rare signed and inscribed copy by Gustave Flaubert to (Louis) de Carné, journalist and historian, several of whose works were listed in the inventory of Flaubert's personal library.
Flaubert's interest in de Carné's work was not always benevolent, however. Critical notes on his articles can be found in the Bouvard and Pécuchet files.
Moreover, the publication of Salammbô coincided with the controversial election of Louis de Carné to the Académie Française, which some critics deemed a clerical coup d'état. His election resulted from a campaign orchestrated by Bishop Dupanloup against the opposing candidate, Émile Littré, whose materialist definition of man had provoked the ire of religious and Orléanist factions. Flaubert refers to the scandal of this election in a letter to the Goncourt brothers dated 6 May 1863: "Have you sufficiently railed against Sainte-Beuve and cursed the Académie over Carné's appointment?"
While this inscription likely predates the election, it remains a curious tribute from an author once accused of “offense against public morality and religion” to a future representative of religious power within the prestigious Académie.
A precious copy, featuring a rare autograph inscription, handsomely bound in a contemporary binding.
Sixth edition with some parts in first edition. It contains 54 new remarks compared to previous editions.
Contemporary full brown sheep binding. Decorated spine with raised bands. Red morocco title label. Rubbing. The last endpaper has been pasted down over the privilege. 3 wormholes on the spine.
New edition from La collection des classiques français, illustrated with a portrait and a folding map of Spain. Fine edition with classical typography and wide margins.
Full glazed wine-red calf bindings, sky blue title and volume labels, smooth spines richly decorated with cathedral tools and rolls, boards stamped in blind with a large central monastic medallion, a blind border frieze and a second in gilt, boards with slight worm damage, marbled edges.
Magnificent romantic binding by a great binder of the period.
It should be noted that the preface by the Comte de Neufchâteau, academician, is actually by Victor Hugo (then aged 16); the count found it so remarkably written that he published it as is. Furthermore, all the footnotes are also by Victor Hugo.
Fine copy in a magnificent contemporary romantic binding signed by Vogel.
