Paul and Virginia: A Tale
London: Whittingham, 1824. First edition. Hardcover. 24mo. 144pp. Gilt decorated leather and spine with red title plate. Scuffing and minor staining to boards. Marbled page edges and endpapers. Dentelles. Beautiful b-w etching frontispiece. Blue ribbon marker. The novel takes place in the Mauritius and is a classic French romantic novel. Like Rousseau, his friend and mentor, Bernardin de St. Pierre was a great literary apostle of the return to nature. In Paul et Virginie, first published in 1788 in the fourth volume of his tudes de la Nature, Bernardin drew on his three-years' residence as a government official in Mauritius for his first-hand description of the exotic scenery of that island paradise. The novel, detached from the ponderous tudes, became a European best-seller for half a century. Translated from the French. In very good condition. vg. Item #13917
Price: $128.00