325 - FLAUBERT (Gustave).

FLAUBERT (Gustave). Madame Bovary – Provincial Life. Paris, Michel Lévy frères, 1857. 2 in-12 volumes with continuous pagination from [4] ff. (dedication to Marie-Antoine-Jules Sénart, half-title, title page, dedication to Louis Bouilhet), pp. [5]–232; [2] ff. (half-title, title page), pp. [233] to p. 490. Lemon-colored half-maroquin with corner pieces, ribbed spine decorated with gilded fleurons and mosaics in black maroquin, title and volume number labels in maroquin, date at the tail, gilt fillet, gilt head, covers preserved (Lanscelin). A few rare foxing spots, brownish stains on about ten leaves in the first volume, very rare slight water stains. First edition, first printing (with the error in Senart). Without the bookseller’s catalog. With a set of 7 engravings on China paper by Boilvin, intended to illustrate the 1874 Lemerre edition and published separately beginning in 1876. (Vicaire III, 721.) Following this, in a third volume in a uniform binding (still by Lanscelin): Indictment, closing arguments, and judgment in the lawsuit brought against the author before the Paris Criminal Court [...] Hearings of January 31 and February 7, 1857. In-12 [1] fol., pp. [389]–470, [1] fol. table of contents. With an engraved portrait of Flaubert added as a frontispiece and a letter from Flaubert, Croisset, [June 27, 1870], 1 p. in-8 with envelope, to Maxime Beauvinier (editor of the newspaper *Le Loiret*), from whom he had not received the article on *L’Éducation sentimentale* because Beauvinier was in the countryside; he asks him to send a copy to Croisset. The documents from the famous trial are excerpted from a Charpentier edition, likely the 1873 edition or a later reprint. These texts—comprising Ernest Pinard’s closing argument, Sénard’s defense, and the judgment—were first published as a supplement to the novel in the definitive 1873 edition, revised by Flaubert himself. The entire set is housed in a later slipcase (a brown half-maroquin folio and case, with a ribbed spine and gilt title). First published as a serial in the *Revue de Paris* from October 1 to December 15, 1856, *Madame Bovary* led to Flaubert being prosecuted for offending public and religious morality and decency. Defended by Maître Sénard, the writer was acquitted on February 7, 1857. The novel appeared in bookstores on April 16 of that year, published by Michel Lévy frères, and was an immediate success. A fine copy of the first edition’s first printing, featuring a complete set of Boilvin’s etchings, documents from the famous trial, and an autograph letter from Flaubert, all in an elegant, uniform binding by Lanscelin.