Lettres d'un voyageur
A remarkable copy preserved in its elegant contemporary binding signed by Kleinhans.
From the library of B. Loliée.
2 octavo volumes: I/ (2) leaves, 422 pp., 1 portrait, 1 plate; II/ (2) leaves, 414 pp., 2 plates.
Half blue calf, smooth spine decorated with gilded tools and fillets, marbled edges, some foxing.
Period binding signed Kleinhans.
209 x 130 mm.
Sand, George. Letters of a Traveler.
Paris, Bonnaire, 1837.
First edition of the utmost rarity in a beautiful period binding signed by a master binder.
Carteret, II, 307 ; Clouzot, 243; Vicaire, VII, 207.
“Quite sought after” (Clouzot).
George Sand’s Letters of a Traveler (1837) is a most singular, unclassifiable collection due to its diversity, gathering letters which are also fragments of a diary, travel stories, and essays on aesthetics, politics, and morality. This breadth fascinates critics, who hear in them George Sand’s voice most intimately, but also, through her, the voice of a model of Romanticism.
Comprising twelve letters, dated from May 15, 1834 to May 29, 1836, these accounts make up a unique, unclassifiable collection due to its diversity, gathering letters that are also fragments of a diary, travel stories, and essays on aesthetics, politics, and morality. It is known that the first three letters, written in Venice after Alfred de Musset’s departure, were inspired by the turbulent relationship between George Sand and him during their trip to Italy in 1833–34. Alfred de Musset would find inspiration in this affair to write his only novel, "The Confession of a Child of the Century," published in 1836. The seventh letter is addressed to Franz Liszt
While George Sand is particularly discreet regarding her private life, she shows less reserve when evoking her close relatives. Thus, she recounts at length the turbulent youth of her mother, exposed to “terrifying hazards” during the Italian campaign, and who is depicted leaving a “rich protection” to follow Mr. Sand.
The story of her youth and passions is veiled to the extreme, and there is certainly more accuracy, despite the fiction, in the Letters of a Traveler.
Each of the twelve letters that make up this work, addressed to friends of the author, first appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes between 1834 and 1836, except for the twelfth, published in the Revue de Paris in 1836. The first three, written in Venice after Musset’s departure, are addressed to him; the seventh is to Franz Liszt.
Very attractive copy, large margins, elegantly bound by Kleinhans, Parisian binder active between 1814 and 1855 from the library of B. Loliée.
A portrait of the author engraved by Luigi Calamatta, dated 1837, from the collected edition of 1837–1841, as well as 3 steel engravings depicting views, have been added to the copy.
