Parisian Life (La Comedie Humaine) - Eleven Volume Set
George Barrie & Son, 1896. Hardcover. Eleven-volume set of Honore de Balzac's 'Scenes from Parisian Life,' one of the interlinked collections of his 'La Comedie Humaine.' Published from 1896-1897. Contents include: (1-2) Splendors and Miseries [of Courtesans] - The Way That Girls Love (Esther heureuse) / How Much Love Costs Old Men / The End of Bad Roads / The Last Incarnation of Vautrin, (3-4) Cousin Bette / Pierre Grassou / The Girl With the Golden Eyes, (5) Cousin Pons, (6) Ferragus Chief of the Devorants / La Duchesse de Langeais, (7) History of the Grandeur and Downfall of Cesar Birotteau, (8) The Civil Service / Gaudissart II / A Prince of Bohemia, (9) The House of Nucingen / The Secrets of La Princesse de Cadignan / Sarrasine / Facino Cane / A Man of Business / The Involuntary Comedians, (10-11) The Petty Bourgeois. Each numbered #315 from an edition limited to 1,000 copies. Contemporary brown half-leather with marbled papered boards, gilt titles and decoration to spine. Good. Leather is rubbed, with moderate to heavy edgewear including frayed corners, light fading to spines. Leather at spines is also lightly to moderately cracked. Top of pages edged in gilt. Volume one has light red/brown staining to top of textblock, and volume two has generally heavier edgewear than other volumes, with fraying to the full front fore-edge. Spines square. Modern repair to bindings at inner hinges. Inner hinges of volumes three and four are cracked; bottom halves of both outer hinges also split. No loose or missing pages - these bindings are else intact, and are sound through textblocks. All other volumes sound entirely. Texts are unmarked; volume one has a prior owner's name rubber-stamped at the limitation page, and there is slight marginal dampstaining to volumes eight and nine, as follows: volume eight has a slight wave (consistent with liquid damage) to front matter and dampstaining to fore-edge margin from the tissue guard at title page through page 40 (not affecting text), and volume nine has a tiny dampstain to the fore-edge margin of an early fly leaf. Slight indentation through front matter of volume five. Pages else clean and bright, texts free of markings. Used: Good. Item #BBS-2015899
Price: $250.00