Eastern France provinces: Alsatian dialects, Lorraine traditions, border heritage and Franco-German culture

First edition of this album of caricatures by Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi which he numbered and initialed (copy no. 36). Printed “in small numbers” (Bartholdi Museum), with only six located in institutions (Colmar Museum, BnF, Harvard, UPenn, NYPL, Rutgers University).

Publisher’s blue cloth binding, flat spine gilt-lettered lengthwise, upper board numerously framed in black, anchors and stars stamped in black at the corners, title and date gilt-stamped; lower board numerously framed in black, black stars at the corners and a central anchor, red edges. Slight rubbing to joints, faint...

First edition of an important text advocating, with detailed arguments, for the free cultivation, production, and export of tobacco, following the loss of land value "by half [...] as a result of two invasions."

Our copy has been disbound.

Bound at the end of the volume are several related pamphlets forming a rare and appealing collection on the subject of the tobacco trade in Alsace:

 - Pétition sur la modification du Régime actuel du Monopole des tabacs, présentée à la Chambre des Députés par les délégués de la Chambre de commerce de Strasbourg. Paris, Le Normant, janvier 1818. 9 pages.

- Monopole des Tabacs. Pétition Sur l'inexécution de la Loi du...

Autograph letter signed by Honoré de Balzac to Gustave Silbermann, dated 18 May [1846], with the blind stamp of the Hôtel des Trois Rois in Basel. A delicate document, with fold marks that have caused some tears with some minute lacks of paper, affecting a few letters, including the last two letters of the author's signature.
A fine epistolary testament to Balzac's unrestrained passion for art collecting, in this likely unpublished letter addressed to his friend, the Strasbourg bookseller and printer Gustave Silbermann. Balzac was planning a stay in Strasbourg, during which he became engaged to Madame Hanska.

First edition printed in a small number of copies, being the sixth booklet of the first series of the Cahiers de l'Ecole de Rochefort.

A rare and pleasing copy. René Debresse’s address has been added in black ink opposite the autograph inscription.

A valuable autograph inscription signed by Luc Bérimont to Jean Follain.

Substantial collection of theses submitted to the Special School of Medicine of Strasbourg between 1803 and 1808, composed in Latin or French and arranged in reverse chronological order.

Contemporary binding in speckled fawn half sheep, smooth spine decorated with triple gilt fillets, black sheep lettering-piece partly rubbed, vellum tips, yellow edges, corners worn; period binding.

I. ORDINAIRE (Désiré): Dissertation sur l'influence de l'habitude sur les facultés physiques et morales de l'homme (2 ll. unnumbered, 33 pp.). The Fourierist Désiré Ordinaire (1773-1847) was professor of natural history, then academy inspector and rector of the Academies of Besançon...

Rare first edition of this occasional piece (a second edition was issued with the Paris imprint), cf. Monglond IV, 232.

Contemporary Bradel-style binding in blue paper over boards, smooth spine ruled in gilt with double fillets, marbled paper-covered boards, a few scuffs to the spine and boards. 

From November 1795, François de Neufchâteau (1750-1828) served as Commissioner of the Executive Directory to the Central Administration of the Vosges, where he devoted himself to the development of agriculture in the department, a pursuit that always remained his foremost interest.

Copy from the library of the lawyer Charles Fournerat (1780-1867) of Ancy-le-Franc, bearing his...