Description
La Botanique d'Andrée by Émilie Carpentier
Circa 1885
Splendid publisher’s binding with plates by Albert Souze
A delightful work of popular science from the end of the 19th century, "La Botanique d'Andrée" is a perfect example of the prize and Lai books of the Third Republic. Written by Émilie Carpentier, this book offers a fictionalized and educational approach to the natural sciences, inviting the reader to herbalism and the study of plants through country walks.
The title page is adorned with a black engraving depicting an outdoor natural history lesson, in which we can make out a young girl holding her box to be preserved.
This copy is particularly distinguished by the freshness of its cartonnage, but especially by its extra soul because it contains a slice of intimate history that makes all the charm of old books.
Indeed, the first cover page features a cute handwritten ink dedication: "To Odile, for her 10th birthday. April 6, 1949. Papa Maman". Just below, a small dried leaf, delicately deposited at the time by the child or his parents, has remained perfectly preserved since 1949.
Author: Émilie Carpentier
Publisher: Librairie de Théodore Lefèvre et Émile Guérin, Paris
Period: Circa 1885-1890 (undated)
Binding: Full original brick red percaline. First publisher dish with a large decoration of special plates, decorated with architectural motifs, flaming torches and plant scrolls struck in brilliant gold and enhanced by black. Back richly guilloched with gold. Second flat stamped cold.
Signature of prestige: The decorative plate of the first dish is signed A. SOUZE (Albert Souze), one of the most illustrious draftsmen and engravers of bindings of the time (in particular famous for his realizations at Hetzel for Jules Verne).
Illustrated with many vignettes in the text.
Condition: The condition of the pages is contrasted, which is typical of papers from this period. Some sections or chapter pages are very scorched with marked oxidation spots, while other text pages and beautiful botanical engravings have remained very white and perfectly preserved.
Dimensions: In-8: 18.5 x 27.5 cm - 237 pages
Beyond the splendor of its plate signed Souze, this copy touches me by its history, offered as a birthday gift in the middle of the 20th century, it has kept in memory the poetic herbarium of little Odile!
