Description
A precious leading copy
of the first edition of Maupassant’s masterpiece,
and grangerized with a handwritten autograph by Alphonse Daudet
on Maupassant’s talent.
From the library of Laurent Meeus.
Maupassant, Guy de. Une vie.
Paris, Victor Havard, 1883.
12mo [186 x 120 mm] of 1 blank l., half-title, dedication title, 337 pages and 1 blank l.
Light-brown morocco, triple gilt fillets around the covers, ribbed spine richly decorated with fleurons in gilt, double gilt fillets on leading edges, doublures in bronze morocco decorated with interlaced frame in gilt, endpapers in light-brown silk, gilt over untrimmed edges, preserved covers and spine.
Mercier, his father’s successor, 1911.
First edition, first issue, of this great intimate novel by Maupassant, one of the literary masterpieces of the end of the 19th century.
A precious copy, one of 10 leading copies on Dutch paper, unjustified, only large paper.
Carteret, 112 ; Vicaire, V, 608-609 ; Clouzot, 197.
“This first edition is quite rare, even on ordinary paper.
The first 10 on Dutch paper are much more sought-after.” (Clouzot)
Guy de Maupassant submits his first literary essays, poems and stories to Gustave Flaubert.
The master from Croisset encourages him, drives him and gets him to meet Zola, Huysmans, Daudet and the Goncourt brothers.
The first of Maupassant’s great novels, “Une vie”, is written like a rigorous and true psychological study, with the kind of strength and impassibility Flaubert praised.
The writer excels in painting the unfortunate destiny of Jeanne le Perthuis, a “noble and sensitive heart”, a Normand aristocrat, married by interest and then scorned, who is unable to raise her child and loses him because of her weakness.
A magnificent leading copy, with very wide margins, of this great first edition, in a beautiful binding with doublures by Mercier.
This copy is enlarged with:
-the portrait of the author engraved by E. de Liphart, on Japan paper,
-the fac-simile of a part of chapter IX of the manuscript of Une Vie, on Japan paper,
–the handwritten authograph on two leaves signed by Alphonse Daudet on Guy de Maupassant, published in the supplement of “l’Écho de Paris” on March 8th 1893 and sharing the wrongful diagnostic that Daudet had formulated at the beginning on Maupassant’s burgeoning talent.
“quelle belle chose que le diagnostic !
Pendant un an, deux ans peut-être, j’ai rencontré Maupassant tous les dimanches aux matinées de Gustave Flaubert qui l’adorait et, sur chacune de ses paroles, se retournait avec un rire tendre et des regards de bon papa. Toujours à la même époque, Maupassant, encore inconnu, a monté bien souvent les trois étages inégaux et superbes de mon vieux logis à l’hôtel Lamoignon…
Chaque fois il m’apportait un conte, une impression, cent cinquante ou deux cents lignes…
En ces premières pages du maître écrivain… rien, absolument rien ne m’a jamais averti que Maupassant était là, personnalité splendide, puissante machine humaine sous vapeur au milieu de nous… Et si ce gars normand à la forte encolure, au teint fleuri de gros cidre, m’ait consulté sur le vrai de sa vocation je lui aurais répondu sans hésiter, « n’écrivez pas. »
Quelle belle chose que le diagnostic !…”
The portrait of the author and the fac-simile of the autograph were published in “Portrait et autographe de Guy de Maupassant pouvant illustrer “Une Vie””, Paris, librairie des Nouveautés artistiques, 1893, joined with a new updated edition published in 1893 by Ollendorff (Vicaire).
Provenance : Library of Laurent Meeus, with ex-libris.
