Ourika

Edition illustrated with a frontispiece and engraved vignette title. Published three years after the first edition.
Full olive green glazed calf, spine elaborately decorated and ruled in gilt, French fillet framing the boards also framed in blind, marbled paper endpapers and flyleaves, all edges gilt. Slight rubbing to joints, scattered foxing mainly on the first few leaves.
A fine copy of the Duchesse de Duras's most famous novel with wide margins, housed in an elegant contemporary calf binding.
A best-selling novel celebrated by Goethe, Ourika tells the tragic story of a young Senegalese woman raised in the French aristocracy after the Revolution, who succumbs to racial prejudice. This pioneering work marks "the first known appearance of a Black female protagonist in European literature" (Robin Mitchell).