First collected edition of the works of François-René de Chateaubriand, each volume decorated with a frontispiece engraved by Charles Thompson depicting a young woman seated on a stone engraved "Chateaubriand, Œuvres complètes" and contemplating the horizon. The author contributed largely to the publication of this edition through the organization of the whole and by writing new prefaces for all the texts. As he writes himself these prefaces are more pieces of autobiography than prefaces.
Binding in half brown calf strictly contemporary Restoration period. Spine with raised bands decorated with 2 blind stamps, roulettes at head and tail and on the bands. Brown calf title label and volume labels. Lack at tail of volume 4. Volume 5 bis, lacks to joints at head, surface wear at tail. Volume 5 ter, upper joint split at head, accident at head with lacks, tail headcap worn. Surface wear at tail of volumes 9 and 10. Volume 11, surface wear at tail with small lack. Volumes 18 and 19, surface wear at tail. Volumes 23, 24, 27 and 28, surface wear at tail. Head of volume 28 rubbed. Supplement to volume 22 rubbed. Apart from some rare worming, set superbly fresh on fine laid paper (but often foxing on endpapers).
Fine series with minimal defects of this important first collected edition of Chateaubriand's works.
The set breaks down as follows:
-Essai sur les révolutions, in 2 volumes. V1 and 2. 1826.
-Mélanges historiques, in 1 volume. V 3. 1827.
-Etudes historiques, in 4 volumes. V 5, 5 bis, 5 ter. 1831.
-Voyages en Amérique, in 2 volumes. V 6 and 7. (with second numbering 1 and 2). 1827.
-Itinéraire, in 3 volumes. V 8, 9 and 10 (with second numbering 1 to 3). 1826. Binder's error in volume 2, the second part begins at p. 17, and the beginning of this second part is bound later, at the end of this part.
-Génie du christianisme, in 5 volumes (second numbering from 1 to 5). 1826 - 1827.
-Atala, René and Le dernier Abencerage, in 1 volume. 1826.
-Les Martyrs, in 3 volumes (second numbering from 1 to 3). 1826.
-Les Natchez, in 2 volumes (this being the first edition of this early work by Chateaubriand). 1826.
-Mélanges littéraires, in 1 volume. 1826.
-Mélanges et poésies, in 1 volume. 1828.
-Discours et opinions, in 1 volume. 1826.
-Mélanges politiques, in 2 volumes (second numbering 1 to 2). 1826 and 1828.
-Polémique, in 1 volume. 1827.
-De la liberté de la presse, in 1 volume. 1828.
-Table, in 1 volume. 1831. (conjugate leaves)
- Appendix to 22nd volume, without volume numbering. Moïse. 1831.
Between the first deliveries by subscription and the last, a year passed, and depending on the date when the order for the works was placed it could take longer, it therefore goes almost without saying that the volumes do not always bear the same dates, the publisher drawing from his stocks and reprinting to honor orders, thus the dates extend from 1826 to 1831. For example, the two volumes constituting the Mélanges littéraires are the first from 1826 and the second from 1828...
19th-century armorial bookplate of a baron, 2 greyhounds flanking the shield
