Madame Bovary. A Story of Provincial Life
London: John Lane The Bodley Head Ltd., 1931. Brissaud, Pierre. Reprint. Hardcover. Small Quarto. xxi. 416pp., 14 plates, incl. frontispiece. Original light brown leather with gilt double ruling on covers, gilt lettering on red and black labels of spine, with gilt tooling and ruling. Gilt dentelles. Gilt edges. Marbled endpapers. Frontispiece of Madame Bovary, with tissue guard. Lithographic half-titles, head and endpieces, and illustrated with thirteen high quality full page b/w offset reproductions by John Austen in the text part. "The man who has seen Hamlet, or listened to a Beethoven symphony, for the first time is not the same man as he was before. Something mysterious has happened to him. The frontiers of his spiritual world have been enlarged. Beauty has distilled its subtle essence within the hidden places of his soul and, henceforth, life for him is fraught with a deeper and, almost inevitable, a sadder implication. A few, a very few, novels come into this high category, and of them Madame Bovary is one." (Introduction). A wonderful edition of one of the first realistic novels. Translated and introduction by J. Lewis May, with magnificent b/w illustrations by John Austen. Some light wear along edges and some sunning to upper front cover and spine. Good to Very good condition. Item #54847
Price: $100.00