Honoré de BALZAC.

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8000 - 12000 EUR
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Honoré de BALZAC.
Le Lys dans la vallée. Paris, Werdet, 1836. 2 volumes in-8: half olive basane, smooth spines decorated with gold and cold, marbled edges (period binding). First edition. The novel is preceded by a History of the trial to which the publication of the Lys in the Revue de Paris had given rise (preface removed from the following editions). The writer had indeed sued the magazine which had published the first volume of the novel. The text of Le Lys dans la vallée presents here numerous variants with the one published in the periodical. Exceptional copy offered by Balzac to one of his very rare supporters during the trial. Autograph letter signed and repeated at the top of the title of each of the two volumes: to Mr Alfred Nettement with a thousand gracious thanks from the author H de Balzac A legitimist journalist with whom Balzac collaborated, writer and historian, Alfred Nettement (1805-1869) was elected deputy of the French parliament from 1849 to 1851. His opinions led to his brief imprisonment following Napoleon III's coup d'état. When Balzac sued the Revue de Paris, most of his colleagues abandoned him, except for Alfred Nettement who, in the Gazette de France, defended him. In the History of the trial, the novelist pays tribute to him on page XII. Deploring the silence of the writers - "not one moves, no, not one sympathy!" - Balzac castigates the press: "There is an honorable unanimity against me," before qualifying: "However, in the Gazette de France, recently a man of fine talent, a vigorous critic, without disguising his thoughts on my works, condemning or approving them as he pleases, took my side against these cowards, who brazenly come and sit in my house without ever having entered it, tell what goes on there, what is done there, nail down pretended carpets, lay fantastic divans, dress up lackeys for me, varnish carriages for me, after having made a mess of my little affairs. To criticize the author's furniture, in order to dispense with talking about his books, is one of the faces of literary polemic. Let Mr. A.. N... find here the expression of my gratitude for his politeness! And what an epigram against the present time to consider as a beautiful action the observance of the laws of good company!" A copy in a modest contemporary binding, restored. Spotting. Of the dedicated copies of Le Lys dans la vall ée, this is one of the most precious. (Berès, Exposition commémorative du cent cinquantième anniversaire de Balzac, 1949, nº 85 to 90 and 298.- Carteret, I, p. 72.- Clouzot, p. 22.)
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