LOBEL-RICHE (Alméry) - BARBEY D'AUREVILLY (Jules). - Lot 116

LOBEL-RICHE (Alméry) - BARBEY D'AUREVILLY (Jules). Les Diaboliques. Paris : Librairie de la collection des dix, [1910]. - Large in-8, 301 x 208 : portrait, IX, 322 pp, (3 ff.), 20 plates, printed cover. Dark green morocco, triple gilt fillet framing the boards, ribbed spine decorated in the first and last box with a gilt bat surrounded by stars, and in the central box with a beige calf piece decorated with a chiseled drawing representing a bat woman, eight gilt fillets framing the inside, green moiré silk lining and endpapers, double guards, gilt edges on witnesses, untrimmed, cover and spine preserved (H. Blanchetière). Beautiful edition printed at 300 copies, decorated with 38 superb original etchings by Alméry LOBEL-RICHE, including a portrait of the author in frontispiece, 10 chapter headings, 7 culs-de-lampe and 20 hors-texte. One of 120 copies on japanese or vellum, here on vellum, containing three states of all the etchings (with remarks, in color, with remarks, in black, before the letter for the hors-texte and with the letter for the headers and tailpieces). Beautiful copy bound by Blanchetière, enriched with the following items: - an original drawing signed by Lobel-Riche, - two crossed-out proofs on japon of two etchings, - a suite of five unused and unmarketed plates, three of which in three states, - publication prospectus, erroneously announcing 40 engravings. The header on page 66 is only in two states, as is also the case in other copies. Spine faded. A handwritten leaf added on page 92 has browned the plate and the leaf where it is located.