BARBEY D'AUREVILLY (Jules). The Forty medallions... Lot 2

BARBEY D'AUREVILLY (Jules). The Forty medallions of the Academy. Paris, E. Dentu, 1864. In-12, (4 of which the last one is blank)-135-(1 blank) pp. blue chagrin, spine ribbed with partitions and fleurons, gilt frame à la Du Seuil on the boards, filleted edges, gilt inner lace, gilt edges; headbands, spines and corners rubbed (old pastiche binding in the taste of the XVIIth century) ORIGINAL EDITION, on strong vellum, without first printing. BROCARDS CONSACRATED TO EACH MEMBER OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY, originally published in September and October 1863, in the magazine Le Nain jaune, under the pseudonym "Old Noll". He evokes for example Victor HUGO ("Caesar of decadence in literature"), LAMARTINE ("a bird of paradise" in a "haven of old morose herons"), MÉRIMÉE (placed above Stendhal for his virtuosity, but associated with him for having as "extreme faults" in common "dryness, the thinness, the concentration recuit"), SAINTE-BEUVE ("man of spirit, with angers of turkey"), VIGNy ("delicious spirit, to which the Academy, which likes only the pedants, the turbulent and the gesticulating, understood absolutely nothing"). Provenance : Heilbronn (bookplate)