George SAND.

Gribouille. Nohant, 3 May 1850. Autograph manuscript signed "George Sand" of 92 pp. on 90 leaves written on the front only except two, in sheets: percale case, in a blue percale box, red morocco title-piece mounted on the first plate. Autograph manuscript signed, complete, of the children's tale published under the title of: Histoire du véritable Gribouill e (1851). A fine working manuscript with corrections and erasures. This children's story, based on the popular saying that "Gribouille throws himself into the water for fear of getting wet," was written at the request of Jules Hetzel. The publisher spoke to her about it in March 1850, and on 3 May, the day she finished writing it, George Sand offered to go to Nohant to read the manuscript, "a hundred pages of my rather large handwriting", which she said she had "done in one go in three days". The Story of the Real Gribouille was one of George Sand's first children's stories; between 1872 and 1875, she composed more than a dozen others, initially intended for her granddaughters. The work was published in 1851, illustrated with compositions by Maurice Sand. The edition was not a success, as the novelist complained in July 1865 in a letter to Dr Darchy: "My name is not in good odour in this public of young Christians. I once wrote Gribouille, a children's story for Hetzel, and it did not bring him any profit because of my signature on the Index." A copy of the first edition, preserved in the pretty decorated percale of the publisher Hetzel, is enclosed in the same box. Histoire du véritable Gribouille. Vignettes by Maurice Sand. Engravings by Delaville. Paris, E. Blanchard, ancienne librairie Hetzel, 1851. In-12: publisher's blue percale decorated in gilt and colour, edges gilt. (Freckles.)