One of 10 first copies on old Japan paper, with the double suite on white silky Japan paper and on parma-colored vélin du Marais (no. 4).
Anatole France’s youth spent on the quai Malaquais, in his father’s bookshop, left him with a lasting devotion to joyful erudition: this volume gathers his major prefaces — from Longus (Daphnis and Chloe) to the Queen of Navarre, Scarron, La Fontaine, Molière, Racine, Lesage, the Abbé Prévost, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Xavier de Maistre, Benjamin Constant, Chateaubriand, Sainte-Beuve, and finally a tribute to Albert Glatigny. These are genuine literary portraits, written with the same narrative elegance that distinguishes his novels. Under the unifying title Génie latin, France assembles his own critical pantheon, free of commonplaces or conventional sentiment — the inclusion of Glatigny alone reveals his sensitivity to discreet destinies.
First published in 1913, this edition owes much to the art of Carlègle (Charles-Émile Égli, 1877–1937), a master of wood engraving and luxury illustration after 1918 (L’Assiette au beurre, Le Rire, La Vie parisienne), whose plates made him celebrated among bibliophiles.
A precious deluxe issue, limited to 10 copies, with a double suite: this copy was bound by Paul Bonet at the very beginning of his career, around the turn of the 1930s.