Memoires de la Duchesse D'Abrantes ou Souvenirs Historiques sur Napoleon, la Revolution, le Directoire, le Consulat, l'Empire et la Restauration. Bruxelles: Louis Harman, 1831-1837.
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A very rare pirated edition seemingly published simultaneously with the Paris edition (first edition) of the same years (1831-35), though this extends further through to 1837 and is subsequently more complete with 25 volumes as opposed to the 18 of the Paris edition.
Duchess Laure Junot Abrabantes (1785-1838) was married to the Napoleonic general Jean-Andoche Junot. When her mother was widowed she was proposed an offer of marriage by Napoleon Bonaparte.
Laure Junot after her marriage with Jean-Andoche Junot entered eagerly into all the gaieties of Paris, and became noted for her beauty, her caustic wit, and her extravagance. The First Consul nicknamed her petite peste, but treated her and Junot with the utmost generosity, a fact which did not restrain her sarcasms and slanders in her portrayal of him in her Memoirs.
On her return to France she displeased the emperor by her vivacious remarks and by receiving guests whom he disliked. The mental malady of Junot thereafter threatened her with ruin; this perhaps explains why she took some part in the intrigues for bringing back the Bourbons in 1814. She did not side with Napoleon during the Hundred Days. After 1815 she spent most of her time at Rome amidst artistic society, which she enlivened with her sprightly converse; a monarchist on her return to Paris during the Restoration, she compiled her spirited but somewhat spiteful Memoirs with the encouragement and supervision of Balzac, her lover since 1828.
Ridiculed by Gautier as the "Duchess of Abracadantès" and fallen into poverty, she died in a nursing home in Paris in 1838. However, these Memoires remain a very important publication to this day, here being one of the most complete editions ever published, beautifully bound in half calf with intricate gilt tooling to the spines.
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Provenance:
Bookplate of the Second Earl of Kilmorey to each front pastedown. Francis Needham, the 2nd Earl of Kilmorey scandalised Victorian society by eloping with his ward, Priscilla Anne Hoste, when he was in his late fifties and she was 20. Priscilla Hoste was the daughter of Admiral Sir William Hoste and his wife Lady Harriet Walpole. He set up his mistress in an adjoining house with a tunnel between the two!
This set sold at Bonhams London "Printed Books, Maps, and Manuscripts" 15th March 2005 lot 89.
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Size: 103 x 148 mm (approx., each)
Condition:
Uniform half green calf over green boards with intricate gilt tooling to the spines and an olive tooled morocco label to each. Spines a little rubbed with some sunning but generally the set is very attractive on the shelf. Light shelf wear. All boards securely attached with joints occasionally a little rubbed. Leather to the boards sunned, often non-uniformly. Boards a little scuffed with most very good. Page edges marbled, top edges slightly dulled as typical, else very good. Bookplate to front pastedown of each volume. We could not find a collated example of this set held institutionally due to its rarity, however it appears to be complete through each volume. Endpapers and first and last few pp lightly foxed as typical else generally clean through the text blocks, mildly toned.
