Gaspard des Montagnes

Published in 1922, Gaspard des montagnes gave its title to the series it inaugurated: a family epic set in the early nineteenth century, in the region of Ambert and the mountains of Livradois. A farmer lives on his estate at Chenerailles, nicknamed the “château with seven doors,” with his two daughters, Pauline and Anne-Marie. The latter has a childhood friend of her own age, Gaspard, a mischievous character. One day, when the young woman is alone at the estate and has neglected to lock all the doors, a thief breaks into the house in search of the map to a treasure hidden in the mountains by her uncle Jérôme, who had made his fortune in Guadeloupe.

There is no connection with Le Clézio’s Le Chercheur d’or, but through this novel, unique in its genre, Pourrat emerges as the great chronicler of the Auvergne and of rural fiction, his “treasury of tales” leaving us a remarkable compilation of the region’s oral tradition. The first volume was followed in 1925 by À la belle bergère (Quand Gaspard de guerre revint), in 1930 by Le Pavillon des amourettes (Gaspard et les Bourgeois d’Ambert), and in 1931 by La Tour du Levant (Quand Gaspard mit fin à l’histoire).

Although this title, widely and repeatedly reprinted, is fairly easy to find, its first edition, and even more so its deluxe-paper copies, are rare.

A fine copy.