First edition in French, of which there were no deluxe copies.
Foxing to spine and margins of boards, retaining the dust jacket which has small marginal tears.
Rare dated autograph inscription signed by William Styron to journalist Paule Villers.
First edition. Very scarce and sought-after, like all of his writings. This play is inspired by his tumultous life, namely the poisoning attempt he allegedly suffered from the hands of his lover Jeanne Sarrey.
With a very rare autograph letter signed by Xavier Forneret, one of the few surviving manuscripts of this bohemian Romantic rediscovered by Surrealists.
The scandalous genius attempts to have Mère et fille performed at the Théâtre de la Gaîté. Letter dated by the author May 27, 1854, addressed to playwright Charles Desolme. Two pages in black ink on a bifolium, small tear along the fold, no damage to the text.
Forneret, a fundamentally marginal literary figure, who evolved outside the Parisian literary circles, had great difficulty staging his plays in Dijon and Paris. Mère et fille lays bare "the feelings of the family, stripped of the movement of incidental characters and the clatter of a grand staging", in the author's own words. Forneret's attempts in this letter to stage the play with Hippolyte Hostein, then director of the Théâtre de la Gaîté, were in vain. The play premiered the following year at the Montmartre theater, and Forneret spent a fortune promoting it. It was scheduled to be performed - along with Jamais, another of his plays now lost - once again at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu, which reneged on its commitment. Well acquainted with the courts of justice, Fourneret successfully sued his director Charles Desnoyers in 1856, who defended himself by declaring that it was "impossible to stage [the plays], because they were unplayable". Nearly a century later, Forneret's works, mostly self-published and neglected by his contemporaries, were rediscovered by the Surrealists, who finally proclaimed Forneret's literary importance with other outcasts like Lautréamont and Raymond Roussel.
"My dear Monsieur Desolme,
According to our conversation yesterday about the return of my manuscript, I regret that M. Hostein, in committing this act of convenience, had not told me that there was a way of coming to an agreement if I consented to a few possible modifications, of scenic requirement; for I do not claim to have written a masterpiece to which it is forbidden to subtract or add an iota. If, therefore, M. Hostein would agree to keep the title of my play, the final events of each act, and agree between us, in a single session (if this is possible) on the changes to be made to my work [...] if, on the contrary, M. le Director of la Gaîté were to make another piece of my drama, to the extent that I would be ashamed to sign it, a work that would no longer be mine, I would be forced to withdraw; indeed, what would be left for me - I ask you, or any man of good logic and good faith? [...] I'm leaving the day after tomorrow, Monday, but I'll be back soon if we don't come to an agreement, so determined am I that Mère et fille will find somewhere to be played [...].
First edition, one of 120 numbered copies on Lafuma pure wove paper, the only large-paper issue.
Endpapers very slightly and marginally toned, two small tears at foot of spine.
A rare and much sought-after copy in original state.
First edition.
Full celadon blue morocco binding, later (ca 1920). Smooth spine decorated with mirror-tooled ornaments at tail and head connected by fillets. Fillet frame on boards. Top edge gilt. Covers and spine preserved. Uncut copy. Scattered pale foxing.
Handsome copy in full morocco.
Last flame of late romanticism, Dominique is a sentimental novel, imbued with profound melancholy, largely inspired by autobiographical events and narrating the story of an impossible love. It is the only novel by this celebrated painter, and remains one of the great works of 19th-century French literature.
First edition, "very rare and extremely sought-after" (Clouzot), one of 750 copies on laid paper, with title vignettes engraved by Henri Porret after Henry Monnier.
Skilful restoration of a tear at the foot of a page, with slight damage to a letter. A rare copy with no foxing.
Green half calf binding, smooth spines with arabesques stamped in gilt, black title labels and volume labels; marbled paper boards, spine boards and endpapers, speckled edges, later bindings in the Romantic style.
First edition, one of 1050 numbered copies on bouffant alfa paper.
Publisher's binding after the original design by Paul Bonet.
Very handsome copy complete with its flexible cardboard slipcase.
