Joseph-Arthur, comte de GOBINEAU.
Les Pléiades. Stockholm, Müller, Paris, Plon, 1874.
In-12 of (2) ff. 412 pp. : half tobacco leather with corners, ribbed spine, eggplant leather title page, untrimmed, gilt head, light blue paper cover and spine, case (H. Duhayon)
First edition. There was no deluxe edition.
Gobineau's masterpiece, long ignored by the public, is the bearer of a thesis: it develops the idea "that there is no more class, that there are no more peoples, but only in the whole of Europe, some individualities floating like debris on a flood".
Perfectly bound copy by Henri Duhayon.
Small restorations to the printed cover. Spine very slightly faded.
(In French in the text, n° 271.- Clouzot, p. 134: "very sought after; rarely well bound at the time").
