BARBEY D'AUREVILLY (Jules)

A History Without a Name. Fifth edition. Paris, Alphonse Lemerre, 1882. In-12, red morocco, triple filet gras et maigre, smooth spine decorated with gilt motifs, triple filet inside, gilt head, untrimmed, cover and spine (L. Genet). First edition, with a new title bearing a fictitious mention of a fifth edition. This is the only one of Barbey's novels not set in either Normandy or Paris. Une Histoire sans nom is based on memories of the writer's trip to Bourg-Argental, in the Cévennes. It was in a way his "madeleine-Proust", for it was apparently here, while he was writing his Vieille maîtresse at the inn, that all his childhood memories came back to him, and these are included in the second "Norman" part of the novel (cf. cat. Barbey d'Aurevilly, 1989, n°124). Spiritual autograph letter from the author, in red ink and accompanied by two crossed sagittarius arrows highlighted in silver, on the back cover: to Madame Louise Laure, He who, for the first time, would have regretted not having been Petrarch. Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly. Judging by the tone of this beautiful letter, Barbey seems as enchanted as Petrarch was with his muse Laure de Noves. The mailing is noted by Bonnefon, Les Dédicaces à la main de M. J. Barbey d'Aurevilly, p. 82. There are 2 handwritten corrections in Barbey's hand (pp. 66 and 208). From the libraries of Roger-Pierre Monmélien, one of Barbey d'Aurevilly's great posthumous admirers, and Gaston Maury. Two quires slightly foxed.