Condition: Good: Good condition for a 105 year old used vintage book! Some wear. Edgewear, and corners and spine show wear. Some scuffs to boards. One page has a very old yellowed tape repair. Previous owner's ex libre sticker inside front cover. Edition limited to 500 copies. This is copy # 177. Red cloth with paper spine label. Top edges gilt, others uncut. Illustrations by Rejchan. See images for the condition of this book. This is a beautiful book and a rare find for any collector.
Blurb: Masterpieces of French Literature.. This is one of this beautifully written stories about destructive love, egocentric men and ruthless women. Wrapped in a romantic atmosphere, we contemplate how two lovers fall in each other arms and end devouring one another.
Daudet is a master creating atmospheres and describing complex and contradictory characters. And the end... ah, the end of this novel is one of those that are to be remembered!
This novel retraces, very traditionally, an initiation into love. The peculiarity is that this first love is experienced with a woman whose last love it will be. The hero lives this amorous passion for persuading that he can free himself from it by the effect of his will, but he is insidiously grabbed by the comfort of everyday life, the couple's habits. Love warms, but it remains. It becomes the toy of Sapho - the superb figure of a courtesan who evolves in the Parisian bohemian of the XIXth century. Daudet's style is remarkable.