Honoré de BALZAC.
Traité de la vie élégante. Paris, Librairie nouvelle, 1853.
In-16, paperback, red printed buff paper cover, Gauché slipcase.
First edition in volume.
Written shortly after the Trois Glorieuses on a commission from Émile de Girardin, the treatise casts an acerbic eye on the world governed by the power of money. It had been published in the journal La Mode in 1830, then in the Pathologie de la vie sociale.
Nice copy, paperback.
From the library of Paul Eluard, with bookplate. Spine rebacked, first cover largely detached.
