La Force de l'âge

First edition, one of 30 numbered copies on Holland paper, the deluxe issue.
Bound in full ebony morocco, smooth spine decorated with small inlays of garnet morocco and pearl-grey box calf, the latter framing the author’s initials and the title; the first numeral of the date, given in Roman numerals, appears within a square of pearl-grey box calf. Morocco boards framed with wide panels of chocolate suede, the upper cover with a large granulated paper panel lettered with the title and date of the edition set in garnet morocco, the initials framed by a rectangle of paper taken from a map of Haute-Savoie; bluish paper endpapers and pastedowns, original wrappers and spine preserved, top edge gilt; housed in a chemise with a rhodoid-backed spine and slipcase trimmed with ebony morocco. Binding signed by Pierre-Lucien Martin and dated 1964.

These “memoirs-autobiography” by Simone de Beauvoir trace her life from her success at the agrégation prepared with Jean-Paul Sartre to the Liberation of Paris in August 1944.

A superb and celebrated binding, produced in a few copies, each differing slightly, by Pierre-Lucien Martin, one of the masters of twentieth-century French bookbinding.