"MARIE ANTOINETTE WAS MADE FOR SUNSHINE, NOT FOR STORM"

CAMPAN, Jeanne Louise Henriette. Memoirs of the Court of Marie Antoinette… with a Biographical Introduction from "The Heroic Women of the French Revolution." London: H.S. Nichols & Co., 1895. Two volumes. Octavo, contemporary full straight-grained black morocco gilt, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. $1450.

Extra-illustrated copy of this renowned contemporary biography of Marie Antoinette, written by her first lady-in-waiting, handsomely bound by Riviere & Son.

First published in England and France in 1823 as Memoirs of the Private Life of Marie Antoinette, this personal memoir was written by Madame Campan, Marie Antoinette's First Lady of the Bedchamber. Campan was "a gifted and exceptionally well-educated woman, reader to Louis XV's daughters, and then a devoted lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette" (Reid, 85); her Memoirs serve as a valuable primary source of information for historians and sociologists. "Edition strictly limited to 500 copies." Extra-illustrated with numerous portraits and architectural views, many early 19th-century; engraved frontispiece portrait in volume I replaced by a color-printed portrait of Marie Antoinette, with the original frontispiece now bound in at a later point in the book. Bookplates.

Minor offsetting from some added plates, contents otherwise clean; joints and extremities slightly rubbed, spines evenly toned. A handsome set.