Description
Very important and rare work (Carteret I, 105) - BARBEY D'AUREVILLY (Jules). An old mistress. P., Alexandre Cadot, 1851, 3 vols. 8°, br., ms. bookplate, red half cloth folder with title-piece on spine (spine partly split and missing 1st cover for 2nd vol., cover and title detached for 3rd vol. with 1 false back, brown spots and brownings, spine of cases stained). First edition (date of 1853 on the faux-title; a 2nd faux-title dated 1852 has been added to the 2nd vol. and another dated 1851 has been added to the last). "An edition (...) with the date of 1852, is given as an original edition, in the Lessore catalogue (...); in the Catalogue G. M. d'O. appears an edition, Paris, Cadot, 3 vols. in-8, with the date of 1853, also as an original edition (...)" (Vicaire I, 292). Barbey's first great novel. A novel of the impossible rupture, of a wild romanticism, it will disconcert the critics and the friends surprised to find such audacities under the pen of a militant Catholic. Baudelaire will come to the rescue: "This cult of truth, expressed with a frightening ardour, could only displease the crowd".
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Very important and rare work (Carteret I, 105) - BARBEY D'AUREVILLY (Jules). An old mistress. P., Alexandre Cadot, 1851, 3 vols. 8°, br., ms. bookplate, red half cloth folder with title-piece on spine (spine partly split and missing 1st cover for 2nd vol., cover and title detached for 3rd vol. with 1 false back, brown spots and brownings, spine of cases stained). First edition (date of 1853 on the faux-title; a 2nd faux-title dated 1852 has been added to the 2nd vol. and another dated 1851 has been added to the last). "An edition (...) with the date of 1852, is given as an original edition, in the Lessore catalogue (...); in the Catalogue G. M. d'O. appears an edition, Paris, Cadot, 3 vols. in-8, with the date of 1853, also as an original edition (...)" (Vicaire I, 292). Barbey's first great novel. A novel of the impossible rupture, of a wild romanticism, it will disconcert the critics and the friends surprised to find such audacities under the pen of a militant Catholic. Baudelaire will come to the rescue: "This cult of truth, expressed with a frightening ardour, could only displease the crowd".
