Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Bonneval. Écrits par M***

First edition of a work by an Illuminist author, also a barrister at the Parlement, known for his licentious and libertine writings, including L'Histoire de Dom Bougre, portier des Chartreux. This work was also at one time attributed to Pierre Lambert de Saumery, who published under the pseudonym "de Mirone."

Midnight blue half morocco with corners, spine with five gilt raised bands decorated with compartments richly gilt with arabesques, fillets and small stars, marbled paper boards framed with gilt fillets, pastedowns and endpapers in combed-pattern marbled paper, pastiche binding signed on the verso of the first free endpaper "Cuzin." Loosely inserted bookplate at the front of the volume, bearing the intertwined initials "DP."

Spine slightly sunned.

Discreet scattered foxing. 

Title page printed in red.

"Impatience causes Barneuil to enter; to see him melt at her feet, embrace them, call her by every name that love inspires — all this happened with a swiftness, with a rapture known only to the most passionate of loves. Never was the passage from the deepest grief to the most vivid joy so sudden as in Mademoiselle de Bonneval; her eyes shone with the fire of love. Barneuil held one of her hands, covering it with a thousand kisses; the mutual pleasure with which their souls were intoxicated silenced their tongues and left only their eyes the power to express their happiness; they lost themselves in this enchanting occupation."

Pp. 101–102

"The substance of this trifle lies in the loves of a young girl thwarted by the rivalry of an aunt who seeks to steal her intended and eventually relinquishes her claims. The novel concludes with the obligatory happily ever after outcome: a wedding." 

Bulletin, Volumes 1–2, 1882

(our own translation)