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En 18..

1851120 x 190 mm

VERY RARE FIRST EDITION.
Only 84 copies would have been offered or sold.

700 

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Description

VERY RARE FIRST EDITION
OF THE BROTHERS' FIRST WORK GONCOURT.

Only 84 copies would have been offered or soldthe rest of the print run was recovered and destroyed by the authors. (Carteret)

Started unhurriedly in 1851, in the mountains of the Valais, then continued in Paris until October of the same year, In 18... was published at author's expense on December 1, 1851, the day of the coup d'état that ended the Second Republic.

"Gerdès, their printer, and that of the Revue des Deux Mondes, of which
the printing house had been invaded by the troop, had thrown the posters into the fire: the title
and certain phrases in the book could have been taken as political innuendo.
In 18... appeared only on December 5, without a poster and with boxes in
a political chapter. […] It sold about 60 copies... [and]
Some time later, Dumineray asked them to clear the unsold goods from the store,
about a thousand, which they deposited in a garret in rue Saint-Georges...."

(André Billy, The Goncourt brothers: Literary life in Paris during the second half of the 19th century.)

"Two or three years later we went up to that attic, I don't know...
plus why, we'd each sit in a corner on the floor,
...going over a copy we'd picked up from the pile, and we found, that day..,
our first novel, so weak, so incomplete, so childish, that we are so
decided to burn the heap."
(Jules de Goncourt, preface of the second edition in 1884).

Complete with yellow covers, very rare conditionThe copies sold were for the most part bound, according to the fashion of the time, without their covers. It was bound at the beginning of the 20th century for Charles Leopold Albert Hettier (1841 - 1914), whose figure adorns the spine, and includes in-fine a postcard from the Conquet bookshop, addressed to the same, informing him of the rarity of the work.

Carteret I:349.

Paris,Dumineray,1851.In-12, Bound,120 x 190 mm,281 pp + table.

Early 20th century binding, red half calf, spine ribbed, decorated with the interlaced numeral CLAH, gilt head, two cover plates preserved and restored. Marginal wetness trace on about 30 sheets.

Bio

Edmond de Goncourt

(born in Nancy on 26 May 1822 and died in Champrosay (Essonne) on 16 July 1896 in the house of Alphonse Daudet)

See The Works

Jules de Goncourt

(Paris: December 17, 1830 - June 20, 1870)

See The Works