Dans le jardin des mots

First edition, of which there were no deluxe copies.
Handsome copy.
Signed and inscribed by the Immortal Jacqueline de Romilly to Catherine David: "... afin de jouer avec les mots et avec mon bon fidèle souvenir." ["...to play with words and with my good faithful memory."]
Novelist, essayist, literary critic, pianist, Catherine David was a pioneer of opinion journalism at Le Nouvel Observateur. Laurent Joffrin, former editor of the newspaper, offering this fine funeral tribute in the January 4, 2023 issue: "... Her passions are eclectic, from music to tai chi, from philosophy to hybrid disciplines, at the frontiers of science and spirituality. Her books bear this mark, a brilliant variation on movement (la Beauté du geste), an essay on Simone Signoret, a spirited biography of Pico della Mirandola, the man of all knowledge, and several volumes of interviews with Stephen Jay Gould, Jean Delumeau, Hubert Reeves or Christiane Desroches Noblecourt.
Such an itinerary could have composed an irritating character, germanopratin, floating above ordinary mortals in the limbo of thought and intellectual chic worldliness. Catherine was quite the opposite, a good friend, living in simplicity and camaraderie, cultivating the art of being a grandmother, in laughter and vigilant attention..."