Sébastien Roch

First edition printed on ordinary paper.
Bradel binding in half sky blue cloth, smooth spine lightly sunned decorated with a gilt floral motif, double gilt fillet at foot, cherry red shagreen title label, marbled paper boards, corners slightly bumped, contemporary binding.
Presentation copy inscribed by Octave Mirbeau to Jean Ajalbert on the half-title page. 
Our copy exceptionally contains a four-page autograph letter dated and signed by H.G. Ibels in which he shares with his correspondent his momentary financial troubles, the poor circumstances that led him to this situation and finally the solicitations from wealthy bibliophiles who covet his important collection of 18th-century manuscripts on the Convulsionnaires...
Large marginal discoloration affecting the front cover as well as much more lightly the half-title page without touching the autograph inscription.

Provenance: Jean Ajalbert’s Japanesque bookplate, in the style of the Nabis, woodcut printed in a very small number of copies and signed with a monogram, probably that of Félicien Rops. “"His bookplate bears all the character of his literature: it is an idealised synthesis of his native Auvergne and of Mount Fuji Japanese horizons,” commented the Archives de la Société des collectionneurs d'exlibris et de reliures artistiques in 1932.

Rops, a major printmaker who was strongly influenced by Japonisme, signed his work with numerous different sets of initials. He used this same “M. B.” monogram for at least one other engraving: the frontispiece to L’Art priapique, published by Poulet-Malassis in 1864. His catalogues raisonnés record very few examples of his bookplates; only one, for Dr Escoube, was included by Exteens in L’Œuvre de Rops, no. 1097.