DAUDET’S WORKS, AUTOGRAPH EDITION, ONE OF ONLY 25 SETS

DAUDET, Alphonse. The Works. New York: Croscup & Sterling, 1899-1900. Twenty-four volumes. Octavo, publisher’s three-quarter red morocco gilt, raised bands, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, marbled boards and endpapers, top edges gilt, uncut and partly unopened. $4800.

“Autograph” edition, number 2 of only 25 sets printed for America, with 100 plates (including 24 frontispieces in double-suite, one of each hand-colored), with a signed and inscribed carte-de-visite tipped into Volume I.

The inscription on the carte-de-visite reads, “merci, monsieur, de nos jolis livres mon jeune fils se régale. En Octobre, nous causerons du lire de Spielhagen [printed] Alphonse Daudet. [written:] Salutations empresseés, Alph. Daudet. [printed:] 3. Avenue de l’Observatoire.” [“Thank you, sir, for our lovely books of which my young son has told me. In October, we will try [Frederick] Spielhagen’s book,” etc.] Includes Daudet’s novels, dramas, and short stories, most notably Fromont and Risler, Jack, The Nabob, Kings in Exile, and Thirty Years in Paris. An intimate friend of Zola and Flaubert, Daudet was a member of the French naturalist school of fiction. His singular, impressionistic style earned him great fame both in his own country and abroad.

Minor expert restoration to a few spine heads. A beautiful set.