85 - [CURIOSA - DE GEETERE]. A Summer in the Countryside. Correspondence between two young Parisian women, compiled by a popular author.

[CURIOSA - DE GEETERE]. A Summer in the Countryside. Correspondence between two young Parisian women, compiled by a popular author. An underground edition of this great classic of erotic literature, illustrated with ten etchings and a second watercolor frontispiece. Not sold anywhere [in Paris], printed clandestinely [at the artist’s studio], 1918 [1928]. Large 8vo (224 x 172 mm), paperback, pink cloth-bound cover. 149 pp., 1 frontispiece in 2 states, including the color state printed on Japanese paper, and 9 black etchings. Wrinkled spine, minor signs of wear on the head and foot, slight smudging from the frontispiece onto the title page. Rare clandestine edition, illustrated with 10 original out-of-text etchings attributed to the Belgian artist Frans De Geetere (1895–1973). The black-and-white frontispiece is enhanced with a watercolor version. Limited edition of 165 copies; this is one of the 100 numbered copies on Arches laid paper (no. 108). [Pia, Enfer, 1465 - Dutel 2545]. First published in 1867, this novel has established itself as one of the most famous clandestine classics of 19th-century erotic literature. Immediately ordered to be pulped by the Lille Criminal Court on May 6, 1868, the work nevertheless survived thanks to numerous clandestine reprints. The authorship of this “sexual education of two boarders” has long been the subject of controversy. Although attributed for a time to Gustave Droz, the story was in fact extensively revised—if not entirely rewritten—by the famous publisher and friend of Baudelaire, Auguste Poulet-Malassis, who was then in exile in Brussels. According to collector and bibliographer Henry Spencer Ashbee (Pisanus Fraxi, *Index Librorum Prohibitorum*, 1877), Poulet-Malassis reportedly purchased the rough manuscript from a young novice before refining its style to give it its distinctive aesthetic. A very fine copy.