HUYSMANS (Joris-Karl). Les Sœurs Vatard.
Paris: A. Ferroud - F. Ferroud, 1909.

Large quarto (278 × 210 mm). (5) ff., V, 262 pp., (4) ff. With original wrappers and spine preserved.
Full aubergine morocco, triple gilt frame on covers with a mosaic thistle at the centre of each board, raised bands, gilt author, title, place and date, spine with double central gilt panel and two mosaic thistles, blind fillet on turn-ins, triple gilt inner fillet with gilt floral tools at corners, gilt edges, matching slipcase. Binding by René Kieffer.

Illustrated edition. Deluxe issue.
One of 20 copies on large Japan or large Arches vellum (this copy on Arches).
With three states of the etched plates and an important unpublished original watercolour by J.-F. Raffaëlli signed on the half title.

First published in 1879, Les Sœurs Vatard is one of Huysmans’s earliest naturalist novels and among the most precise literary testimonies of Parisian working-class life under the Third Republic. Before the decadent masterpieces that would make his fame (À rebours, Là-bas), Huysmans offers here a near-documentary depiction of the harsh lives of two young bookbinders, firmly inscribing the novel in the direct lineage of Zola, while already revealing his singular sensitivity to detail, atmosphere and social margins.

A very slight rubbing to the upper joint of the front cover and to one raised band of the spine, otherwise a superb copy. Some minor wear to the slipcase.
Provenance: from the library of Lucien Gougy (III, 1934, no. 361), then Marcel Lecomte (1900–1966), with bookplate, and later from the library of Robert Schuman (1886–1963), former President of the European Council, with his ownership inscription “r.s.”.