Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller

La Morte [Aliette]

Feuillet, Octave

Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1886. Limited First edition. Hardcover. 1/50. Octavo. [4], 306pp. Pages untrimmed. Contemporary 3/4 calf over marbled paper covered boards, with gold lettering and tooling to spine. Raised bands. Top edge gilt. Marbled endpapers. Original wrappers bound in. Publisher's logo on front wrap and title page.

In "La Morte," Octave Feuillet has brought together two well-defined types of character, so that he may observe or predict how things will turn out with them. The story deals with a marriage; and there at once we are at the heart of the controversy between two different ways of looking at life. "La Morte" consists for the most part of letters in which Bernard, Vicomte de Vaudricourt tells his own story. He describes himself as one who quite early in his manhood had come under the agnosticism of the 19th century. He had tenderness enough to shed tears when it seemed to him no longer possible to believe. He asks us to take his word for it, that it was not merely to justify his own way of living that he abandoned his faith. He describes himself as an average man about town. Of an old family, rich, and the prospective heir to a wealthy uncle, he meets, with a view to a marriage, Mademoiselle Aliette de Courteheuse. Belonging to a family of equal standing, Aliette is a sensitive and ardent Catholic. She was the devoted daughter of a father who himself had been a recluse, defending himself from the contamination of the time in the history and literature and circumstances of what seemed to him an infinitely better time, "for it was by comparison an age of faith" the 17th century.

This copy is one of 50 on Holland paper, of which this is No. 18.

Offsetting and darkening to spine. Minor and sporadic rubbing along edges. Original wrappers expertly repaired. Fore-edge of a few pages slightly foxed and water-stained (not affecting text). Text in French. Binding in overall good- to good, interior in good+ to very good condition. g- to vg. Item #39939

Price: $95.00