Original edition of the Orientales by Victor Hugo, rare without any edition mention,
complete with the rare original by Sainte-Beuve.
Hugo, Victor. Les Orientales.
Paris, Charles Gosselin, bookseller of H.R.H. Monseigneur the Duke of Bordeaux and Hector Bossange, 1829.
In-8 of (1) blank leaf, (2) leaves, 1 frontispiece, xi pp., 424 pp., Prospectus of 16 pp.
Long grain red morocco by Dubois d’Enghien, yellow printed covers preserved, gilt edges, slipcase, one joint rubbed.
207 x 129 mm.
First edition of the first issue, with printed cover before the fictitious edition mentions, printed in only 320 copies.
Talvart, IX, 13.
“The original edition was printed in 1250 copies, divided into four fictitious editions: the last three bearing: third, fourth or fifth edition, which thus are greatly depreciated. The first, without edition mention, about 300 copies, is therefore in high demand”. (Clouzot p. 144).
“A work of great rarity in fine condition, one of Victor Hugo’s masterpieces”. Carteret, I, 398.
“‘Les Orientales’ remained famous as the first manifestation of the poet’s personal genius. While in the ‘Odes and Ballads’, he had given the first proofs of a lyrical gift manifesting in the most diverse directions, alternating boldness and calculated restraint, here, two years after ‘Cromwell’ which had placed him at the forefront of the noisy Romantic troupe, Hugo resolutely takes on the role of school leader by adding to a greater mastery of his art vigorous polemical accents.
The collection opens with a preface where Hugo discusses new poetry with warm eloquence, challenges classical theories, claims for French poetry the greatest possible freedom in the choice of subject and expression, and concludes by wishing France, in extremely picturesque terms ‘a literature that can be compared to a medieval city’ […] The scrupulous legitimist of the ‘Odes’ already launches his first blows against the existing regime and does not hesitate to show in the Greek revolution an example of the modern peoples’ rebellionagainst the tyranny of kings […]
It is acknowledged that this work paved the way for a good part of the poetic audacity of the entire 19th century as well as for that preference for the picturesque, for local color, which was to be one of the most striking features of Romantic poetry. Some of these poems, with high inspiration and particularly grand style, are worthy of ‘The Legend of the Ages’ and make us anticipate the heights his poetry will reach in his upcoming works”. (Dictionnaire des Œuvres, V, 68)
The present edition is adorned with a frontispiece engraved on steel, printed on china paper: Moonlight, and on the title a woodcut vignette: The Djinns; both after Louis Boulanger.
A copy with very large margins (height: 207 mm) in fine state of preservation, one of the rare, according to Clouzot, to contain in original edition the “PProspectus of V. Hugo’s Works” written by Sainte-Beuve.
The copies without edition mention preserved in their contemporary binding are of utmost rarity.
