privately printed - Pierre Louÿs' masterpiece

This edition was printed in small numbers and not for sale: 'tirée à petit nombre et non mise dans le commerce.'

Pierre Louÿs was born in Ghent in 1870 to a Champagne family, who had taken refuge in Belgium during the Franco-Prussian War. A classmate of André Gide, Louÿs studied at the École Alsacienne, and went on to become a very well known French poet and writer, a close friend of Debussy and Oscar Wilde. He was made first a Chevalier and then an Officer of the Légion d'Honneur for his contributions to French literature.

This erotic work, originally written in about 1910, was inspired by the free relationship between the author and the wife of José Maria de Heredia and his three daughters. It is considered to be Louÿs' masterpiece: 'a true story down to the smallest detail' according to the author himself. He wrote inside the book: 'Ce petit livre n'est pas un roman. C'est une histoire vraie jusqu'aux moindres détails. Je n'ai rien changé, ni le portrait de la mère et des trois jeunes filles, ni leurs âges, ni les circonstances' [This books is not a novel. It is a true story down to the smallest detail. I have changed nothing, neither the portrait of the mother and the three young girls, nor their ages, nor their circumstances].

First edition; 4to (29 x 20 cm), 361pp., text printed in purple reproducing the author's manuscript, 20 full page engraved illustrations including frontispiece (with slight spotting on two plates), original paper spine bound in at rear, bound by 'G.Mativet', binder's name stamped on front free endpaper, marbled endpapers, half brown morocco gilt, marbled boards, brown calf label gilt lettered; a very good copy.

Bibliography of Erotic Works by Pierre Louys - online. 28a ( for the later issue)