L'Inutile Beauté

12mo of (3) leaves, 338 pp., (1) leaf.

Green long-grain morocco, covers richly decorated with a wide border of gilt floral motifs and red morocco onlays, spine with raised bands decorated with gilt fillets and motifs and red morocco onlays, author and title gilt on spine, gilt fillet on edges, pink embroidered silk endpapers and linings, wide gilt inner roll, gilt edges on untrimmed paper, blue cover and spine preserved.

Mosaic binding by Ch. Meunier.

188 x 118 mm.

Maupassant, Guy de. The Useless Beauty.

Paris, Victor Havard, 1890.

Rare first edition of this collection of eleven short stories by Maupassant, the last collection published during his lifetime.

Carteret, II, 122; Vicaire, V, 622-623; Clouzot, 198.

Precious deluxe copy, one of 50 on Holland paper, not justified, the only large paper, adorned with 34 superb watercolors by L. Bourgeois.

The copy is decorated with 12 large watercolors in color and 22 small ones in monochrome gray – 11 tailpieces and 11 headbands – totaling 34 original watercolors by L. Bourgeois.

"The Useless Beauty is the rarest story I have ever written," wrote Maupassant in 1890.

This short story is a synthesis of Maupassant’s themes: the difficulty of coexistence between the sexes and the power of doubt that pervades human relationships, the uncanny strangeness of motherhood, the uncertainty of paternity, and above all, the enigma of woman.

The Useless Beauty stands out immediately for its uniqueness. The story breaks with what Maupassant had done until then. In contrast to images of cunning women or victimized characters, the heroine of this story is a woman who takes her life into her own hands and asserts choices that run counter to collective consciousness and the roles it imposes. The image of woman offered by this story is a kind of human and social tidal wave, of which the Countess de Mascaret is the initiator.

The Useless Beauty puts at the forefront the crisis of the couple, and a new image of woman and man.

Besides The Useless Beauty, which gives its name to the book, ten other stories—The Olive Grove, Fly, The Drowned Man, The Test, The Mask, A Portrait, The Cripple, The Superior's 25 Francs, A Case of Divorce, and Who Knows?—here display the range of Maupassant’s genius.

The volume brings together tales and stories, Norman and Parisian episodes, fantastic tales, and domestic scenes...

It was to Flaubert that Guy de Maupassant submitted his first literary attempts, poems or stories. The Master of Croisset encouraged him, guided him, and enabled him to establish relationships with Zola, Huysmans, Daudet, and the Goncourt brothers.

Precious copy, part of the deluxe edition, on Holland paper, the only large paper, in a fine morocco binding signed by Ch. Meunier and adorned with 34 watercolors by L. Bourgeois.

Provenance: library of J. C. Courbin, with ex-libris.