Paris, Victor Magen pour les tomes I & II ; Dumont pour les tomes 3, 4 & 5, 1835-1837.
5 parts in 5 volumes 8vo [205 x 124 mm] of: I/ (4) pp., 388 pp., (1) l. of table; II/ (4) pp., 368 pp., (1) l. of table; III/ (4) pp., 372 pp.; IV/ (4) pp., 340 pp.; V/ (4) pp., 404 pp. Brown stains in the margin of p. 295 of vol. 1, former restoration in the margin of p. 27 of vol. 1, marginal tear p.113 of vol. 1; small stain p. 41 of vol. 4, a few foxing.
Light brown glazed half-calf, spines ribbed, extremities and ribs of the spines gilt-stamped, panels of the spines decorated with blind-stamped fleurons, yellow edges. Elegant contemporary bindings.
Splendidly bound copy of this famous text by Alexandre Dumas, of the utmost rarity in first edition. Parts 3, 4 and 5 published by Dumont in 1837 are here in first edition.
The first two volumes forming so to speak a first part present here the text of the first edition of 1834 with a new title bearing the mention “second edition” and the date of 1835.
The five volumes were bound at the time for a demanding amateur in half-calf decorated at the bottom of the spines with a cathedral decor.
“This set is rare” (Carteret, I, 229).
“These Impressions de voyage are Dumas’s first very long story: it is striking to see that we find, in germ, all the genres that will later give birth to his great successes.
The term “impressions” cannot be better chosen. Dumas is an impressionist, even before we associate this qualifier with the painters. The travel diary is indeed a collection of impressions, in front of the beings and the majestic nature. Duma deposits them on paper, and makes the reader want to go and spot check them. He is a painter in his own way.
And yet, modestly, Dumas, in an almost fairy-tale description of an old woman and her son, claims that it would be necessary to be “Rembrandt to fix on the canvas, with its ardent color and picturesque expression, this bizarre picture”. But the description he makes of it is so precise, it leaves so much to feel the powerful poetry of the scene, that it is not necessary for a painter to grasp more of it. Dumas is, truly, a painter of words.
What gives more value to these stories, are the philosophical reflections they awaken in Dumas. In most subsequent works, the author will regularly move away from the story to comment on it. Here, more than ever, he gives free rein to his thoughts that cannot fail to make the reader think. Thus, when Dumas discovers that fishing and hunting are not always games, but can also, for some, be hard work, sometimes deadly, he writes: “C’est dans les hommes mêmes qu’elle veut faire libres que la liberté trouve ses plus grands obstacles”. Elsewhere, meditating on mourning, Dumas states: “…aux ailes de la poésie et de la religion, comme à celles des aigles, il faut la solitude et l’immensité“. One cannot pass on such observations without stopping, without trying to go further.
The Impressions de voyage do not have to be read page after page. You can take them anywhere, just to taste part of this long route. One can also, if impatient, skip a few pages to find more quickly an endearing or intriguing character: for example, this English man or Pauline that Dumas crosses at different moments of the trip.” (Marie Douville).
Except for a few scattered foxing natural in an unwashed copy in original condition, this is a remarkable copy of a very rare book in an elegant romantic contemporary binding.
“A fine copy in a contemporary binding deserves a clear financial effort”. (Clouzot).
