Romanticism

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 illustrated with 8 lithographed plates printed outside the text and protected by tissue guards.

Only two copies recorded in the CCF (BnF and ENC).

The sole edition, uncommon: in fact a miscellany assembled by Fanny Claudet (Madame Prosper Richomme), bringing together "orientalist" texts that had already become classics on this part of the Middle East (Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Poujoulat, Michaud, Francis Wey, etc.).

First edition of the French translation.

Loukia Droulia (849) records this work without having been able to examine it. Not in Blackmer and Atabey, who describe the English edition published the same year (A narrative of Lord Byron's last journey to Greece).

Contemporary full mottled beige calf, flat spine elaborately decorated with gilt garlands and fleurons, red morocco lettering piece, minor rubbing at the foot of the joints, gilt tooling to spine-ends, borders of gilt dotted rules, gilt garlands to the boards also framed in gilt, edges framed in gilt, marbled edges.

A few minor and unobtrusive spots.

Pietro Gamba (1801-1826) was the brother of...

First edition of this ambitious study dedicated to the eminent Orientalist Antoine-Isaac Silvestre de Sacy, in which the author sets out to examine "l'état et les destinées de l'Asie, d'y suivre la trace des systèmes religieux et d'en indiquer l'enchaînement" (cf. Cordier, Sinica, 70. Barbier I, 305 c. Quérard XI, 101.)

Contemporary full porphyry calf bindings, smooth spines decorated with quadruple gilt fillets and gilt fleurons, gilt ornamental borders at head and foot, olive-green calf lettering- and volume-labels, three with losses at the corners, gilt rolls to the headcaps, covers framed with double gilt fillets, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, marbled edges, gilt fillets to...

Rare and sought-after first edition.
 
Half-black shagreen binding, spine in four compartments, marbled paper boards, pebbled endpapers and pastedowns, speckled edges, contemporary binding.
Some occasional light foxing as usual.
 
Rare copy in strictly contemporary binding.

Paris, Louis Janet and later Madame Veuve Louis Janet, from circa 1840 and subsequent years. 17 octavo volumes, 14.8 x 23.7 cm.

A set comprising the ten volumes of the first series and the seven volumes of the second, corresponding to the complete collection as described by Gumuchian. Uniformly bound in contemporary full burgundy calf, the smooth spines faded and decorated with gilt Romantic arabesques, gilt ornamental bands at head and foot, boards framed with double gilt fillets and gilt cornerpieces, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, gilt lines to the board edges. Some corners slightly bumped. Scattered...

Rare first edition, as referenced by Clouzot (see Guide du bibliophile français XIX^e siècle, p. 256).

A few insignificant spots of foxing, a small black ink stain at the bottom of pages 354–355. Complete with the errata leaf at the end of the volume.

Caramel half calf binding, spine with five raised bands ruled with gilt dotted lines and decorated with gilt and black tools, gilt fillets at head and foot of spine. Minor rubbing to the spine. Brown morocco title label. Marbled paper-covered boards framed with blind-stamped vertical rolls, endpapers and pastedowns in cat’s-eye paper, all edges gilt. Roman bookseller’s label at the top...

First edition, limited to 1,100 copies, divided into four fictitious editions within the same year, in order to create the illusion of commercial success. These were subsequently reissued with a new title-page bearing an edition statement and the author’s name, together with a volume designation on the half-titles (cf. Clouzot). Our copy carries the designation “third edition.” Contemporary bookplate traces on the upper pastedowns. Expert restorations to headcaps and joints, with a tiny loss at the foot of the lower joint of vol. I. A clean copy, entirely free of foxing.

Contemporary half chocolate calf bindings...

Autograph note signed by Victor Hugo in ink on a newspaper cutting:

"Par le Ph.[are] de la L[oire] d'aujourd'hui j'apprends que je suis un traître j'en prends acte"

This modest yet powerful note is emblematic of the mythic Hugolian tradition of the "copeaux", or little "shavings" of paper. As an outlet, a catharsis for this overflow of thoughts and agitation, the writer accumulated ill-fated fragments: "Hugo's writing also has its wild, untamed side. Hugo was a graphomaniac: for him, writing was an imperious gesture, bound to no place or hour. Words, phrases...

| "the time for planting has come" |
Autograph letter signed by François-René de Chateaubriand, dated March 14, 1827. 3 1/2 pages in black ink on a bifolium, addressed to Michel-Augustin Varcollier.

Chateaubriand writes to the husband of his goddaughter, Atala Stamaty-Varcollier, the first to bear the name of the heroine of his famous novel that propelled him onto the literary scene in 1801. Head of the Fine Arts Division of the Seine Prefecture, Michel-Augustin Varcollier acted as Chateaubriand's intermediary in the development of the grounds of l'Infirmerie Marie-Thérèse, his wife Céleste's grand project to house...

« Chère amoi [sic]
Ton ami arrivé moulu brisé de deux nuits de voitures et de chemins de fer. Il t'attend demain soir mardi. Oh ce sera avec grand bonheur qu'il s'assurera que toutes choses sont dans l'état où il les a laissées
a toi »

Actes et paroles - Avant l'exil, 1841-1851 [Words and Deeds - Before the Exile, 1841-1851]
Michel Lévy frères, Paris 1875, 19,5x25cm, bound.
First edition, one of 20 numbered copies on chine, most limited deluxe edition of this important collection of speeches, public declarations, and political texts intended for French parliament (Chamber of Peers, Constituent Assembly and Legislative Assembly), all written - as stated in the title - prior to his exile. These important texts address freedom of the press, theater and education, as well as the abolition of the death penalty.
Half red shagreen binding, smooth spine decorated in gilt lengthwise, marbled paper...

Second edition with some parts in first edition as expanded with two new pieces: "L'occasion" and "Le carrosse du Saint Sacrement".

Half red straight-grained morocco binding with corners signed Blanchetière at the top of the first endpaper. Smooth spine decorated with a large mirror tool and roulettes. Separating fillets on the boards. Very fresh copy, uncut, however some brown spots on Le carrosse du saint sacrement.

Very handsome copy.

Provenance: from the library of Jacques Crépineau, famous collector of Romantic books, with his bookplate. Theater historian and director of the Michodière theater.

This is Prosper Mérimée's first work composed...

Invitation card to the ball celebrating the centennial of Victor Hugo's birth, held at the Salle des Ingénieurs civils, rue Blanche in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, on Saturday, February 22nd, 1902.
A handsome and rare copy despite a very small stain in the upper left corner of the card.
The ball was organized by the committee of the "Société littéraire Victor Hugo" presided by P. Heuzey.

First edition published in 20 instalments, illustrated with wood-engraved vignettes in the text after Célestin Nanteuil, Français, Karl Girardet, Jules David, etc., and 20 copper-engraved or lithographed plates after Diaz, Decamps, Hazé, A. Guignet, E. Hedouin, Théodore Chasseriau, Alophe, Couture, etc. The original covers of all instalments are bound at the end. The covers erroneously announce 30 engravings instead of the 20 actually included.
Later binding in red Russian half morocco with corners, spine in five raised bands richly gilt, date in gilt at foot, gilt fillet frame on pasteboard covers. Considerable rubbing and bumped corners.

First collected edition of the works of François-René de Chateaubriand, issued in parts between 1826 and 1831 and here gathered in 32 volumes. Partly a first edition, the series includes the first appearances of Les Natchez, Le Dernier Abencérage, Voyage en Amérique and Moïse. Each volume is illustrated with a wood-engraved frontispiece by Charles Thompson, the English engraver established in Paris from 1816, showing a young woman seated beside a stone inscribed

Victor HUGO
Les Misérables
A. Lacroix & Verboeckhoven & Cie, Bruxelles 1862, 14,5x22cm, 10 bound volumes.

First edition without statement published concomitantly with the Pagnerre's Paris edition.
Bound in half blue sheepskin, spine in four compartments decorated with double gilt fillets, blue paper plates, marbled paste-down and endpapers, mottled edges, English bindings of the time.
Scattered foxings, title page of the third volume slightly and marginally soiled, paper plates a little rubbed and a few tears on some edges, some joints repaired.