Guy de MAUPASSANT.

Bel-Ami. Paris, Victor-Havard, 1885. In-12: blue jansenist morocco, ribbed spine, double gilt fillet on the edges, old rose morocco lining with gilt fillet and double framing of straight and curved gilt fillet, blue silk endpapers, gilt edges on witnesses, cover and preserved (G. Mercier, 1934). First edition. One of 200 copies on Hollande laid paper, the only one on large paper. Maupassant's second novel was a great success, as shown by the twenty-five editions in two months. The critics of the time (Faguet, Anatole France, Brunetière) praised the construction, the power and the cruel truth of the work. An autograph letter signed by Maupassant addressed to the publisher or the printer is bound at the head of the book. He addresses to his correspondent a sheet of Bel-Ami. "Please have a new proof printed at once and send it to me at 10 rue Montchanin, where I shall be on Monday to hurry up this never-ending task. I have not received the end of the first part in plates; and I am very much afraid of having a lawsuit with the Budapest newspaper, which must receive it by March 15." A fine copy in doubled morocco. From the libraries of Laurent Mêeus, Raoul Simonson and Louis de Sadeleer, with their bookplates. Spine slightly insolated. (Clouzot, p. 197: "200 copies on Hollande. Much sought after."- Connolly, One Hundred Modern Books from England, France and America, 1880-1950, Austin, n° 8).