BARBEY D'AUREVILLY (Jules)

Une Vieille maîtresse. Paris, Alexandre Cadot, 1853. 3 volumes in-8, red half-maroquin with corners, smooth spine decorated with a mosaic foliate stem passing beneath the midnight-blue morocco title-piece, gilt-edged head, untrimmed, cover (Bretault). Original 1851 edition, with relay titles and covers dated 1853. Copy without errata, enriched with a portrait of the author engraved by H. Toussaint after Émile Lévy, in double state, and the suite of 10 etchings by Félix Buhot, printed on chine, for the 1873 Lemerre edition. At the head of Volume I is a beautiful autograph letter signed by Barbey to Octave Uzanne (2 pages in-12, dated Whit Tuesday 1878, envelope with red wax seal preserved); the writer confirms the cancellation of a dinner: I don't think it was expressly agreed that day, between us, but as I am the most anxious being on Earth (an Englishwoman called me Lord Anxious), I am writing to you to put an end to my anxiety. It would be impossible for me to spend tomorrow together. Some Normans are arriving from Normandy, attracted by the onlookers at the exhibition. I belong to them. Tomorrow, they'll be gone. You'll still be here to belong to me. Yours sincerely Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly. In 1927, the bibliophile and prolific journalist Octave Uzanne (1852-1931) published a biography of the author of Les Diaboliques, whom he had met in 1877. From the library of Colonel Daniel Sickles (IV, 1990, n°1009). Brittle jaws, one split over 6 cm in volume I.