Arthur de GOBINEAU Lot n° 34

History of Ottar Jarl, Norwegian pirate, conqueror of the country of Bray in Normandy, and of his descendants. Paris, Librairie Académique Didier et Cie, 1879. In-12 of (2) ff, 450 pp, (without the 34 pages of the publisher's catalog), half Prussian blue morocco with corners, ribbed spine decorated with cold filets, gilt head, cover and spine preserved (Honnelaître). First edition. Convinced that he was a descendant of the Norwegian warlord Ottar-Jarl, who settled in Normandy in the 9th century, Gobineau began in his 15th year to assemble the material for this history which he was to publish at the age of 63, "a capital work in his thinking, which associated the origins of his family with the whole of his ethnic theories [....] He intended to put in this work, which would cover ten centuries of the existence of a French family, a part of his philosophical conception, by explaining it by the origin of his ancestors" (Léon Deffoux. The Count of Gobineau at Trye-le-Château). Joint : DEFFOUX (Léon). The count of Gobineau in Trye-le-Château. According to new documents and an unpublished text of Gobineau. Paris, extract from the Mercure de France, 1927. In-8 of 21 pp, (1), f., paperback, printed yellow cover. First edition, constituted by the separate edition of 100 copies of this article published in the Mercure de France. It is in 1857, thanks to the inheritance of his uncle, that Gobineau "could acquire, in this Beauvoisis, conquered formerly by Ottar, the manor of Trye, which had possessed, in the XIIth century, Jean de Dammartin, brother-in-law of Hugues IV, who was descended, in direct line, from Ottar-Jarl himself! Signed autograph address of the author on the false title: to my dear director Gustave Téry, affectionate homage. Gustave Téry (1870 - 1928) directed the nationalist newspaper L'oeuvre, which he had founded in 1904.