POUGENS (Marie-Charles-Joseph de). Jocko. Preceded... Lot 1

POUGENS (Marie-Charles-Joseph de). Jocko. Preceded by a notice by Anatole France. Paris, Charavay, 1881. In-16, paperback. Vicar, VI-792 /// (1f.)-XXI-139-(3f.). An etching frontispiece by Frédéric Régamey. An astonishing scientific novel by Marie-Charles-Joseph de Pougens, a writer who passes for being the natural son of the Prince de Conti, who was afflicted with smallpox and became almost blind at the age of 24, then fell victim to a charlatan who finished gouging out his eyes. In spite of his blindness, he carried out a great deal of scientific research. A friend of Chénier and d'Alembert, he published many books. The tale Jocko, about the instinct of animals, features a female monkey from the island of Ceylon who befriends a man. Edition of 392 copies, this one of 350 on tinted vellum, here enriched with an autograph signed on a guard sheet, to my dear and illustrious master / Theodore de Banville / the publisher of this trifle / Anatole France. Théodore de Banville was already a master of Parnassus at the time when Anatole France was trying to make a name for itself, but the relationship between them became closer when they were both entrusted, together with François Coppée, with the task of choosing the poems to be included in the third contemporary Parnassus. First detached dish with a small gap in the back.