Léon BLOY. Le Désespéré (Tresse & Stock, 1887 [for 1886] - Lot 147

Léon BLOY. Le Désespéré (Tresse & Stock, 1887 [for 1886]); in-12, viii-579 p., half-maroquin with blackhead corners, smooth spine, cover and spine, gilt head, untrimmed. Genuine first edition, one of ten copies on Hollande (no. 9). First edition printed as early as 1886 (with the date 1887), but stored in the cellar of P.-V. Stock (who feared prosecution), and put on sale seven years later; it was disowned by Bloy. Since the Soirat edition (1886) had not given rise to any legal proceedings, Stock decided to publish his own in 1893; he amended the passage directed against Figaro director Francis Magnard (here Magnus Conrart, director of Basile) according to the text of the Soirat edition, cardboard-covering cahier 23 (marked with a double asterisk for pp. 397-404 and 413-420) and had the copies stapled. Only 10 first-edition, press-numbered copies of this Stock edition were printed on Hollande paper. Ex libris of Jean-Victor Pellerin.