François René de CHATEAUBRIAND
Oeuvres complètes. - Vie de Rancé - Mémoires d'Outre-tombe.
Furne & Gosselin; Delloye & Garnier; Eugène et Victor Penaud, Paris 1837-1841 & (1844) & 1849-1850 , 14x23,5cm, 38 volumes reliés.
Collective edition
complete works in 25 volumes in Furne & Gosselin. Original edition for
The Life of Rance in Delloye.
The original edition to
the grave Memoirs of Eugene Victor & Sheepish.
Binders half fir sorrow, back with four false nerves decorated with triple boxes stamped cold and cold-nets of heads and tails, paper plates to the tank, guards and contreplats combed lined paper, and crowned armorial bookplate Charles-François Ferand (of Gerard Arcjehan) engraved and pasted the first contreplat of each volume, binders of the time.
The 25 volumes of the complete works are enriched, frontispiece, Chateaubriand portrait from Girodet and 28 steel engravings from Johannot.
Memoirs from beyond the grave are the first issue and have much warning and the list of subscribers that were removed thereafter.
Our set is enriched with a unique beautiful letter to his friend and executor Baron Jean-Guillaume Hyde de Neuville. This letter, mounted upside tab of the half-title page of the first volume of
memoirs from beyond -Falls, dictated to his secretary and signed by Hyacinthe Pilorge Chateaubriand dated October 28, 1831.
"[...] I will deliver a final battle, and fpring, I will take the path of exile, because decidedly I will neither pay taxes to Louis Philippe, nor live on it. I will find myself immersed in new tribulations, but it is our role to you and me and force is to accept our destiny. »Hyde de Neuville, regularly quoted in the
memoirs from beyond the grave, is among the most loyal friends Chateaubriand. It will be one of its four executors, is harnessing including the difficult task of publishing
the grave Memoirs of attempting to enforce the author's wishes.
An ardent defender of legitimacy from his youth, friend Cadoudal as Malesherbes, conspirator exiled by Napoleon, Hyde meets Chateaubriand in 1807 in Cadiz. Immediate friendship links the two men. In 1820, Hyde tries vainly to offer Chateaubriand an annuity to overcome its financial troubles. Very politically engaged, they co-opt another in various positions of ministers or ambassadors. After the dismissal of Charles X, the two men are at the service of the Duchesse De Berry and arrested together in July 1832 for threatening state security. In 1836, Hyde founded with other friends Chateaubriand a company to buy the rights of
memoirs from beyond the grave and publish them after the death of the author according to his wishes.
Advice and support Chateaubriand in all his affairs, Hyde has with him a touching correspondence (published in 1929) which reflected their long and lasting friendship. "Chateaubriand tells her melancholy, her despairs, regrets of an ancient world that both had known his worries about the publication of his works" (in
John William Hyde de Neuville (1776-1857) and conspirator diplomat by Françoise Watel).
In the unpublished letter dated 28 October 1831 that enriches our copy Chateaubriand refers to his whereabouts between Paris and Switzerland for the publication of his
defense of Charles X threatened with banishment. In a few words full of complicity, he evokes the vain and courageous struggle of Hyde and himself to save their world illustrated by this quote from Racine stressed:
"We will not tell you that" Benjamin is feeble, and Judah without virtue. '"with no doubt, Hyde knows the context of this verse taken from
Athaliah, "Well what can I in the midst of this people killed / Benjamin is without force, and without virtue Judah / The day of their lives off King race / extinguished all the fire of their ancient boldness. »
Exceptional collection of works by Chateaubriand in uniform binding time, composed, among others, of the original edition of
the grave Memoirs enriched with an important and original autograph letter signed. Superb example of the dissolution of a world as much as literary resistance of greatest French writer of the time.