Contes du lundi
Paris, Alphonse Lemerre, 1873.
1 vol. (110 x 175 mm) of [3], 258 p. and 1 f. Half blue morocco, spine ribbed and decorated, gilt title, date gilt at foot, slipcase (later binding).
First edition, of which no deluxe-paper copies were issued.
“The notes you are about to read were written day by day while roaming the outposts. This is a page torn from my notebook, while the siege of Paris is still hot. It is all choppy, jarring, dashed off on my knee, jagged like a shell fragment, but I give it as it is, without changing anything, without even rereading it. I would be too afraid of wanting to invent, to make it interesting, and spoil everything”: this is how Daudet introduces these tales, which appeared every Monday in the press during the Prussian invasion. They were collected in book form three years later, forming one of the author’s masterpieces. A rare text, here in a fine copy.
Carteret, I, 194; Vicaire, III, 41.
#29596
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