Théophile GAUTIER.

Lot 29
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800 - 1200 EUR
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Result : 2 300EUR
Théophile GAUTIER.
Spiritist. A fantastic novel. Paris, Charpentier, 1866. In-12 of (2) ff. 235 pp. and 12 pp. of the publisher's catalogue: brick cloth Bradel style, brown morocco title page, untrimmed, cover preserved (contemporary binding not signed but by Pierson). First edition, carefully printed by J. Claye. Masterpiece of fantasy literature, Spirite is a kind of spiritual testament of which Stéphane Guégan has given an autobiographical reading. The novella bears the trace of the love, chaste in spite of himself, that Gautier devoted to his sister-in-law Carlotta Grisi (the ballerina-fairy who had created Giselle). Amusing autograph lettering signed on the false title: to Castor and Pollux Edmond and Jules de Goncourt Théophile Gautier Autograph note signed in red ink at the head of Edmond de Goncourt: "Exemplaire avec dédicace de Theo." Engraved bookplate of the Goncourts (cat. Livres modernes, 1897, no. 367). The copy later belonged to the Marquis de Piolenc (1913, no. 330) and then to Jean Stern, with ex-libris. A pleasant copy bound in the period by Pierson. (Guégan, Théophile Gautier, 2011, p. 528: "This is perhaps the most autobiographical of his novels. It is presented at once as the recapitulation of a work and a life, a double descent into oneself, and an unfinished assessment of love.")
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