Odes et ballades

New edition with an original preamble.
Binding half brown shagreen, back with four nerves set with black nets adorned with black boxes decorated in their centers of golden florets, discrete restorations on the joints, brown cardboard plates, guards and contreplats of handmade paper, Contemporary binding.
Handwritten ex-libris with pen next to the fake title page.
Precious autograph signed by Victor Hugo Jules Janin.
The relationship between Jules Janin - one of the most influential literary critics of the time, particularly in the Journal des Débats - and Victor Hugo were, in their early days, conflictual. For a long time he never ceased to criticize Victor Hugo in his literary criticism, particularly in 1827, when the "prince of critics" made fun of the Last Day of a Condemned Man and published a parody entitled The Dead Ass or Woman guillotined . At the exit of Marion Delorme , he even went so far as to say that the playwright "does not understand the expression of passions".
However, at the turn of the 1850s, during the exile of Hugo, Janin showed solidarity with the outlaw and the two literary leaders began the exchange of correspondence.
The autograph dedication of the author on this copy of the new edition of Odes and ballads is a testimony of the reconciliation between these two celebrities of French letters.
A fine copy of the book, enriched by a rare autograph dedication by Victor Hugo to one of the tenors of literary criticism.