“TO REMAIN UNTIL DEATH YOUR DOG WHO LOVES YOU, WHOM YOU MAY BEAT, AND WHO CARESSES YOU PASSIONATELY”

DAUDET, Alphonse. Sapho. Parisian Manners. Paris, London and New York: Société des Beaux-Arts, 1905. Octavo, contemporary three-quarter textured brown morocco gilt, webbed boards and endpapers, top edge gilt, uncut. $500.

Beautifully printed edition of this beloved piece of French literature, with frontispiece portrait and four etchings after drawings by Stanislas Rejchan, handsomely bound.

First published in France in 1884, Daudet’s novel is “the history of two lovers whose relationship is continually broken off and renewed … For a time [Daudet] was a leading naturaliste, writing with the care for documentation typical of the movement, but his work comes alive by his gift for vivid, impressionistic description and because his naturalism never excluded the warm, poetic, fantasy-loving side of his character” (Harvey & Heseltine, 188). Text in English. Published the same year as a limited edition of 500 copies. Gilt monogram on binding. Early gift inscription.

A fine copy, handsomely bound.