156 - HUGO, Victor. *The Story of a Crime*. A Witness’s Testimony.

HUGO, Victor. *The Story of a Crime*. A Witness’s Testimony. First edition of Victor Hugo’s major essay against Napoleon III and his coup d’état of December 2, 1851. One of 20 copies on China paper in a romantic pastiche binding signed by Semet & Plumelle. Paris, Calmann Lévy, 1877 and 1878. 2 volumes in 1 in-8 volume (170 x 255 mm), glossy half-calf with blond corners edged with a gilt fillet, plain spine decorated with a Romantic design consisting of borders, friezes, and scrollwork in gilt, author’s name and title in gilt, date at the bottom, gilt head, untrimmed, original covers and spine preserved (Semet & Plumelle). 317 and 336 pages. Binding rubbed at the joints and corners; a small loss of paper at the upper corner of the front cover of the second volume. A few marginal foxing spots. First edition. One of 20 numbered copies on China paper (no. 12), the second paper type following 10 copies on Japan paper and preceding 40 copies on Holland paper. [Clouzot, p. 151 - Brunet, IV, 353]. Although written in the heat of the moment during the first months of Victor Hugo’s exile in Brussels in 1851–1852, *Histoire d’un crime* was not published until twenty-six years later, in 1877, after the fall of the Second Empire. Through this account of the four days leading up to the coup d’état of December 2, 1851, Victor Hugo issues a warning against the temptations of a coup d’état that would threaten the young Third Republic. From the library of Jean Meyer and Prochian, with their bookplates. A fine copy with full margins in a later Romantic-style binding signed by Semet & Plumelle.