N.d. [Royal Print, 1824].
12mo of 108 pp. Half red long-grain morocco, smooth spine decorated with gilt fillets. Contemporary binding.
160 x 92 mm.
Precious and true first edition of one of the rarest novels of 19th-century literature. Carteret, I, 250.
According to La Rochebilière, only 40 copies were printed, without a title page and not put on the market. The copies were distributed by the duchess to her close ones.
“Extremely rare, printed in very small numbers (25 or 40 copies)”. M. Clouzot, Bibliophile’s Guide, 113.
“The Duchess of Duras (1778-1828), daughter of a ship’s captain, the Count of Kersaint, who died on the scaffold, emigrated with her mother to Martinique, then settled in London where she married the Duke of Duras, another emigrant. She returned to France after the 18th of Brumaire but, throughout the Empire, lived in seclusion with her husband in their château in Touraine, where her only connection to the literary world was her friendship with Chateaubriand, and especially with Mme de Staël. With the Restoration, the Duke of Duras was appointed Marshal of France, and the duchess, back in Paris, held a rather exclusive literary salon, where being admitted was somewhat of a worldly consecration. She published two novels well-received by the public“. (Dictionnaire des auteurs, II, 78).
“Under the Restoration, the salon of Mme de Duras was one of the most brilliant. ‘Soon, said Sainte-Beuve, a small elite society formed in aristocratic boudoirs, a sort of Hôtel de Rambouillet adoring art behind closed doors…’.”
The publication of Ourika in 1824 provided the Duchess of Duras with one of the greatest successes of women’s novels.
Instantly fashionable, this short story delicately sketched the story of a young black slave woman in love with the son of her protectors.
“I was brought back from Senegal, at the age of two, by M. Le Chevalier de B. who was the governor there. He took pity on me one day when he saw slaves being boarded on a slave ship that was soon to leave the port; my mother had died, and I was being taken away on the ship despite my cries. M. de B. bought me, and upon his arrival in France, he gave me to Madame la Maréchale de B., his aunt, the most amiable person of her time…“Very beautiful copy of this first literary edition of mythical rarity, in pristine condition and bound in a fine red half-morocco of the period.
