"Because in the end, you won't remember the time you spent working in the office or mowing your lawn. Climb that goddamn mountain." (attributed to Jack Kerouac)
First edition
Contemporary red half Russian morocco, the spine with double gilt fillets, corners very lightly rubbed.
Presentation copy, inscribed by Théophile Gautier to Monsieur Bufquin des Essarts on half-title.
First edition in French, printed on vergé paper.
Publisher's Arabesque yellow paper binding by A. Lenègre, spine with gilt, black, and turquoise Arabic decorative motifs (head- and tail-pieces slightly rubbed), upper cover richly ornamented with Arabic decorative motifs in gilt, black and turquoise with a frame of gilt and black fillets, turquoise paper pastedowns and endpapers (corners slightly bumped), all edges gilt, a few small insignificant spots to lower cover.
Text by Alfred Edmund Brehm & Johannes Dumichen.
The work is illustrated with 24 watercolors after nature by Charles Werner.
A few small spots, mostly affecting endpapers.
Rare.
Autograph note dated and signed by Paul Claudel, one page addressed to Thierry Maulnier (12 lines in blue ink on a single sheet).
Central folds.
