157 - HUGO, Victor. The Art of Being a Grandfather.

HUGO, Victor. The Art of Being a Grandfather. First edition, enhanced with a signed autograph dedication, in a lovely full leather binding. Paris, Calmann Lévy, 1877. Large 8vo, full ebony Jansenist chagrin, ribbed spine, gilt inner wheel, double gilt fillet on the edges, guilloché caps, gilt head, untrimmed, covers and spine preserved. Binding signed by Babouot. 323 pp. Spine slightly faded, two fine scuffs along the raised bands, two small paper losses on the preserved cover. First edition. Copy enhanced by a signed autograph dedication from the author to Edgar Hément, editor at the newspaper *Le Temps*. Published toward the end of his life, this masterpiece of lyric poetry by Victor Hugo is a celebration of childhood, inspired by his two grandchildren, Georges and Jeanne, whom he raised after the death of his son Charles in 1871. Setting aside political struggles to extol tenderness and everyday innocence, the author makes the figure of the grandfather a symbol of universal wisdom. [Vicaire, IV, 355–356]. Fouquet coat-of-arms ex-libris, from a Basque bourgeois family originally from Bayonne, adorned with a red squirrel and bearing the motto: “Quo non ascendam.” In good condition, bound by the Babouot workshops, the historic bookbinder of the prestigious Pléiade collection.