Gérard de Nerval.

The Daughters of the Fire. Nouvelles. Paris, D. Giraud (Imp. de Gustave Gratiot), 1854. In-12: red half-chagrin, spine with false nerves decorated in cold, red percale boards decorated with a cold frame (period binding). First edition. The most famous book by Gérard de Nerval (1808-1855) was composed in the fever of autumn 1853, when the author felt his creative faculties were threatened. The collection contains a preface-letter addressed to Alexandre Dumas and eight texts including the admirable Sylvie (Souvenirs du Valois), Angélique, Jemmy, Octavie, Isis, Corilla (a comedy in one act, already included in the Petits châteaux de Bohême) and, above all, as an appendix, the twelve sonnets of the Chimères "with changes of title and variants, not without a few interchanges of the quatrains and tercets" (Aristide Marie) A fine copy in contemporary binding. Some spotting and browning. Modern endpapers. (Bibliothèque nationale, En français dans le texte, 1990, n° 273. - Marie, Bibliographie des oeuvres de Gérard de Nerval, nº 251.)