Women Writers

First edition, rare, published in the Complete Works of George Sand by Bonnaire. The half-title indicates volume XXIV.

Modern half black straight-grained morocco binding with small corners signed René Aussourd at the top of the endpaper. Jansenist spine with raised bands. Title, author and date gilt. Covers preserved. Upper right corner of the front cover lacking (0.5cm). Light rubbing to boards. Very handsome copy with perfectly fresh uncut paper.
Ex libris Paola Sanjust.
Dialogue novel featuring a young Italian noblewoman during the Renaissance, raised as a man for succession reasons. Gabriel will be confronted with the hypocrisy of society and rebels against the abyssal difference between the rights granted to men and the oppression reserved for women. The author analyzes with irony the differences in education between girls and boys. Balzac, enthusiastic upon reading the work, did not hesitate to compare it to a Shakespeare play.

First edition, rare. As the foreword recalls, this short story by Madame de Genlis had originally appeared in the Bibliothèque des romans, volume V.

Contemporary full brown grained sheep binding. Smooth spine with 4 dots and fillets. Black calf title-label. One tear with small loss to upper cover. One corner slightly bumped. Fine copy, fresh. At end: Work by Madame de Genlis sold by the same bookseller.
The forgotten masterpiece of the Comtesse de Genlis, a short story with classical writing that responds so well to the writing precept she established: "clarity, naturalness, purity, elegance are the indispensable marks of good style", and to her conception of the short story: "in this last work everything must move toward the goal with rapidity, or everything must relate to it." Mademoiselle de Clermont recounts the authentic passion of young Marie-Anne de Bourbon-Condé, princess of the blood, for a duke whom her social rank forbids her to marry. In this true story reported to the author, no facility such as love at first sight, the outpouring of amorous language. The short story is brief, effective, stripped of all artifice. "Mme de Genlis the narrator constructs narrative structures where, through a subtle interplay between the time of telling and the time of what is told, narration in the past and commentary in the present succeed each other; frame narrative and embedded narrative. Amel ben Amor, Doctoral thesis in French Languages and Literatures." 18th Century Literature

First edition for which no grand papier (deluxe) copies were printed.
Small marginal pieces missing at the top of the first board, a clear remnant of adhesive paper at the bottom of the first endpaper.
Copy complete with the facsimile at the end of the volume.

Precious handwritten inscription signed by Gabriele d'Annunzio to Natalie Clifford Barney: « à miss Barney et au Temple de l'Amitié attentive, cette légère torpille ‘sine litteris' est offerte par la ‘tête d'ivoire'. Gabriele d'Annunzio » (“To Miss Barney and the attentive Temple of Friendship, this light ‘sine litteris' torpedo is offered by the ‘ivory head'. Gabriele d'Annunzio”

Very beautiful testimony to the friendship between Gabriele d'Annunzio and Natalie Clifford Barney, who probably met through the painter Romaine Brooks, temporary lover of the “ivory head” but also of the Amazon for more than fifty years.
In 1909, Natalie Clifford Barney acquired the Temple of Friendship at 20 Rue Jacob and set up her literary salon, which would be held every Friday and would welcome the greatest literary and artistic personalities of the time: Salomon Reinach, Auguste Rodin, Rainer Maria Rilke, Colette, James Joyce, Paul Valéry, Pierre Louÿs, Anatole France, Robert de Montesquiou, Gertrude Stein, Somerset Maugham, T. S. Eliot, Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob, André Gide, Nancy Cunard, Peggy Guggenheim, Marie Laurencin, Paul Claudel, Adrienne Monnier, Sylvia Beach, Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Truman Capote, Françoise Sagan, Marguerite Yourcenar... and, of course, Gabriele d'Annunzio whom she greatly admired.
She paid tribute to him by devoting a chapter of her Aventures de l'esprit (1929) to him: “D'Annunzio, a precious little old ivory object, works with the constancy of a monk who watches over his God.”

The rare first French edition, translated by Jean-Baptiste Robinet, after the first English edition published in 1769. Four attractive separate engraved title pages. Changuion catalogue at the end of the third part. The edition shared in Paris with Le Jay appeared a few months later and does not have engraved titles.
Contemporary binding in full marbled brown sheep. Decorated raised-band spine. Beige morocco title label, tobacco morocco volume label. Triple fillet frame on boards. Loss to lower joint at foot of volume I. 3 corners bumped. Handsome copy, fresh overall.
Epistolary novel set in Canada. "The romantic customs of Canada and the manners of its inhabitants are described in this novel with great truth," Revue des Romans (1839). Frances Brooke (1724-1789), English woman of letters, lived in Canada where she had married an Anglican minister. A lieutenant goes to French Canada with the aim of establishing a settlement, and resides in Quebec, Montreal (of which he gives extensive descriptions). The lieutenant undertakes certain journeys in Canada, to New York, and shares his political reflections on the necessity of uniting the French and English, on the customs of the Hurons, etc. Very interesting novel about Canada around 1765 and the different colonies (definitive cession of French Canada to England in 1763).

First edition, one of 30 numbered copies on pur fil paper, this copy one of 10 hors commerce, the only grand papier (deluxe) copies.
A nice copy despite the very slightly sunned spine.
Autograph inscription dated and signed by Marguerite Yourcenar to Maurice Bourdel, director of publishing house Plon, and his wife : "... cette Electre perdue dans "un monde où l'ordre n'est pas"