Impressions de voyage

5 volumes in-8, half midnight blue morocco, spine with raised bands decorated with gilt fillets and tools, sprinkled edges. Contemporary binding.

203 x 127 mm.

Dumas, Alexandre. Impressions of Travel by Alexandre Dumas.
Paris, Adolphe Guyot, Charpentier and Dumont, 1834-1837.

I – Impressions of Travel, by Alexandre Dumas. First Volume. Paris, At the office of the Revue des deux mondes, rue des Beaux-Arts, no. 6. Adolphe Guyot Bookstore, place du Louvre, no. 18. London, Baillière, 219 Regent street, (Printed by H. Fournier), 1834. Octavo. 1 leaf (half-title; on the verso, name of the printer); 388 pp., 1 leaf of table. Etched frontispiece by Célestin Nanteuil.
No printed title; the frontispiece serves this purpose.
This volume I is recorded in the Bibliogr. De la France of November 30, 1833.
II – Impressions of Travel, by Alexandre Dumas. Second Volume. Paris, Charpentier, bookseller-publisher, rue de Seine-Saint-Germain, 31, (Corbeil, printed by Crété), 1834. Octavo. 1 leaf (half-title); on verso, name of the printer); 368 pp., 1 leaf of table.
No printed title. According to Asselineau, Bibliogr. Romantique, the frontispiece of volume I^st is reproduced in very poor quality in volume II and serves as a title page (as is the case with this copy).
III to V – Volumes III to V bear the following title: Impression of Travel, by Alexandre Dumas. Paris, Dumont, publisher, 88 Palais Royal, Literary Salon (Printed by Widow Dondey-Duprey), 1837, octavo.
Volume III: 2 leaves (half-title and title); and 372 pp.
Volume IV: 2 leaves (half-title and title); 340 pp. and the very rare 16-page catalogue.
Volume V: 2 leaves (half-title and title); and 404 pp.

Elegant, rare original edition, complete in five volumes with the correct date and the frontispiece in volume two.

“A fine copy in period binding deserves a significant financial effort. Rarely complete in all 5 volumes. The frontispiece of volume II is often missing” (Clouzot)

“The set is rare” (Carteret).

“The travels of Dumas père are pure delight” (Mortimer).

“These Impressions of Travel are Dumas’s first very long narrative: it is striking that one already finds, in embryo, all the genres that would later give rise to his great successes” (Marie Douville).

The term “impressions” could not be better chosen. Dumas is an impressionist, even before the term was linked to painters. The travel journal truly is a collection of impressions, facing people and majestic nature. Dumas sets them down on paper, and makes the reader want to check them in person. He is a painter in his own right.

The Impressions of Travel need not be read page by page. You can open them anywhere, to simply savor a part of this long journey. You can also, if impatient, skip a few pages to more quickly find a captivating or intriguing character—for example, that Englishman or Pauline whom Dumas encounters at different moments of the journey” (Marie Douville).

A copy unwashed and without foxing, with wide margins, complete with the extremely rare 16-page catalogue at the end of volume IV, in elegant period bindings.

Reference: Carteret I, p. 228 (“the set is rare”); Clouzot, p. 95 (“rarely complete in all 5 volumes. A fine copy in period bindings deserves a significant financial effort”).