Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux

The first edition, with 201 illustrations hors texte and 120 vignettes by Grandville.
Contemporary dark-green half shagreen over marbled paper boards by Werner, spine in five compartments with gilt garlands and triple gilt decorated compartments, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, marbled edges, corners bumped.
There’s no need to introduce this famous work, a satire of Second Empire society. The work was initiated by Hetzel who – under the pseudonym of de Stahl – authored several of the texts and commissioned others from the most notable writers of the day : Balzac, Musset, Sand, La Bedollière, and so on. The final chapter includes a fantasy of various writers being imprisoned in the botanical gardens for public entertainment, one of the great imaginative leaps by Grandville, full of verve and inventiveness.
A good copy, fresh and without spotting.