182 - MORAVIA (Alberto). *La Belle Romaine*.

MORAVIA (Alberto). *La Belle Romaine*. Novel translated from Italian by Juliette Bertrand. Paris, Flammarion, 1953. In-8. Publisher’s full brown leather binding, richly decorated with gold motifs on the covers and spine. Published in Italian under the title *La Romana* in 1947, this novel ranks among the most significant works of Alberto Moravia, one of the great Italian writers of the 20th century. Through the story of Adriana, a young Roman woman caught up in the compromises of interwar Italian society, Moravia offers a penetrating meditation on desire, freedom, guilt, and the human condition. With sober and incisive prose, the author describes with remarkable psychological insight the contradictions of a heroine who is both a victim and an agent of her own fate. The work, which garnered significant international acclaim, remains one of the novels most representative of Moravia’s moral and social universe. A beautiful copy in its elegant publisher’s binding of full brown leather, adorned with rich gilt borders and fleurons. The interior is fresh and well-preserved. A high-quality edition of a great classic of contemporary Italian literature, a testament to Alberto Moravia’s subtle and disenchanted art of the novel.