Valérie ou Lettres de Gustave de Linar à Ernest de G...

First edition of this epistolary novel, partly autobiographical, published with the help of Chateaubriand and which was described as a "little masterpiece" by Sainte-Beuve.
Contemporary bindings in full blonde mottled calf, smooth spines decorated with gilt fillets, compartments and fleurons, red morocco title and volume labels, gilt roulette frames to boards, gilt roulettes on edges and headcaps, speckled paper endpapers and pastedowns, all edges speckled red. Joints rubbed, that of the front board of volume I split along its entire length, the same of volume II opening at the tail.
This epistolary novel is the most famous work of Madame de Krüdener, Russian woman of letters born in Riga in 1764 and died in Crimea in 1824.
Rare and handsome copy.