Description

COLLECTION OF 6 TRAGEDIES, INCLUDING FOUR FIRST EDITIONS.

The Burgraves includes this autograph signed letter :

"To my dear father Mr Foucher V.H."

Ruy Blas includes this autograph signed letter :

"To my kind and gracious sister Melanie V.H."

The four volumes are identically bound, and three of them bear the bookplate of Victor Foucher, Adèle Hugo's brother, who was Victor Hugo's playmate from primary school.
At the age of 17, Victor Hugo and Victor Foucher, together with Eugène Hugo, created a magazine which published three issues, The Literary Curator.
Mélanie Foucher, wife of Victor Foucher and sister-in-law of Victor Hugo, was godmother to Charles Hugo, the second son of the siblings.

THE FOUCHERS, VICTOR HUGO'S SECOND FAMILY
In 1796, Léopold Hugo, the 26-year-old future father of Victor Hugo, was Captain Rapporteur of the Council of War at Paris City Hall. He befriended the clerk-secretary Pierre Foucher. On 11 November 1797, Léopold Hugo married Sophie Trébuchet; on 4 May the following year, at Pierre Foucher's wedding, Léopold, his best man, is said to have uttered this prophecy:
"Have a girl, I'll have a boy and we'll marry them together, I drink to the health of their household".

Léopold had three sons, Abel, Eugène and Victor Hugo, born on 26 February 1802. On 1 June that year, Pierre Foucher also had a son, Victor, and the following year a daughter, Adèle, the future Madame Victor Hugo.

Pierre Foucher was very close to the Hugo family, who lived in the rue de Clichy at the time, and he left precious memories of Victor Hugo's early childhood:
"When I went to Mrs Hugo's, I always found Victor in the corner, whining and drooling all over his apron".
From 1803 onwards, the Hugo couple were torn apart by moves and affairs, from Elba to Spain via Naples; the separation became final in 1815 and the judge granted the divorce in February 1818, entrusting the children to Sophie. After his mother's death on 27 June 1821, Victor Hugo wrote to Adèle Foucher:
"No one cares about my future, I'm an orphan. Wherever I turn my eyes, I see myself alone."
On 12 October 1822, he joined the Foucher family and moved into their home at the Hôtel de Toulouse (now Boulevard Raspail).
Pierre Foucher became his second father.
As the head of the family, Pierre Foucher was involved in paying for the internment of Eugène Hugo, who had become schizophrenic; he helped Victor to obtain the Legion of Honour cross, followed his literary career, and witnessed the triumph of Lucrezia Borgia and encouraged him in his political commitment. Hugo asked him for advice, listened to him and even asked him to check the dates, spellings and filiations of stories in these works.
On Pierre Foucher's death, his son Victor Foucher took charge of the family archives and compiled his brother-in-law's dramas in these volumes.

A copy of the original edition of Cromwellbearing this unsigned letter: "To my second father".. It was probably given as a gift to Pierre Foucher and later bound by Petiot at the end of the 19th century.
There is also a copy of Notre Dame de Paris, in the recent sale of the Bibliothèque de Pierre Bergé, one bearing the dedication: "to Mélanie her devoted brother V.H. "

VERY PURE COPIES, BOUND AT THE TIME BY THE FOUCHER FAMILY, ONE OF HUGOL'S FINEST PROVENANCES.

Details of works :
- The King is having fun
Paris, Renduel, 1833.
Third edition, with the addition of the speech given by M. Victor Hugo,
19 December 1832. Bookplate of Victor Foucher. (Bertin, n°79)

- Lucrezia Borgia
Paris, Renduel, 1833.
ORIGINAL EDITION complete with the rare original etching by Célestin Nanteuil on chine pasted on the frontispiece, showing Lucrezia Borgia pouring poison on Gennaro.
The title reads Œuvres complètes de Victor Hugo. Dramas V.
Bookplate of Victor Foucher (Bertin, no. 82).

- Marie Tudor
Paris, Renduel, 1833.
Second edition with a fine frontispiece-title by Célestin Nanteuil, complete with preface and final notes. Published very shortly after the original, they both form volume VI of the author's Drames.
Ex-libris of Victor Foucher. (Bertin, no. 88)
linked with
- Angelo, tyrant of Padua
Paris, Renduel, 1835.
ORIGINAL EDITION forming Volume VII of the Works of Victor Hugo.
Complete with preface and final note. (Bertin, n°100)

- The Burgraves
Paris, Michaud, 1843.
ORIGINAL EDITION complete with preface.
SEND SELF-EMPLOYMENT signed : "To my dear father Mr Foucher V.H." .
(Bertin, n°179)
Bound with
- Ruy Blas
Paris, Delloye, 1838.
ORIGINAL EDITION forming Volume VII of the Works of Victor Hugo.
SEND SELF-EMPLOYMENT signed : "To my kind and gracious sister Melanie V.H."
(Bertin, n°133)