BARBEY D'AUREVILLY (Jules)

Fragment, to be placed at the head of the Joseph Delorme that I must give to... Preface by François Laurentie. Paris, Alphonse Lemerre, 1912. In-12, soft-bound, ochre morocco, title and author's name in gilded capitals on first board, olive nubuck lining and endpapers, gilded edges, cover and spine, half-maroquin folder and slipcase (Renaud Vernier maître d'art 2003). First edition, decorated with a frontispiece portrait of the author photographed by Mélandri. One of 10 copies on hollande, the only announced first edition with 5 japon. The scene in this text takes place in Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, on a gray December day: two young girls dressed for a ball lean out of a window, moved to see the funeral procession of a girl their own age... (cf. Pierre Leberruyer, Au pays et dans l'œuvre de Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly, p. 25). This Fragment, in which the very young Barbey d'Aurevilly already shows himself to be what he was until his last hour, is imbued with the melancholy inspired by the pains and realities of life (Prière d'insérer, one page, enclosed). An attractive copy in soft binding by Renaud Vernier.