George SandBiblio.com
George SANDBiblio.com
La Mare au Diable The Devil's Pool
186780208Paris: Michel Lévy frères 1867. Fine. Michel Lévy frères Paris 1867 11.50 x 18.50 cm relié New edition. Contemporary binding in half green shagreen spine in four compartments set with gilt stippling gilt fillets and gilt fleurons in the corner pieces multiple blind tooled frames on the boards white iridescent paper endpapers all edges gilt. Some leaves shorter in the bottom margin. Handwritten inscription signed by George Sand on the first endpaper: à mon bon ami Edmond Plauchut. G. Sand"". Today the only outsider to the family buried in the cemetery of the Nohant house is Lucien-Joseph-Edmond Plau chut 1824-1909 who began an epistolary relationship with George Sand in the autumn of 1848 when he was a voluntary expatriate after the fall of the Republic. Leaving for Singapore he was shipwrecked off the coast of the Cape Verde Islands and was able to save only one cassette containing Sand's letters that he had preciously bound. These missives were his salvation: they allowed him to be collected fed and laundered by a rich Portuguese admirer of the Lady of Nohant Francisco Cardozzo de Mello. After several journeys toward the Far East and several exotic presents sent to his distant and yet so close friend Plauchut finally met George Sand in 1861. In 1870 she paid a vibrant tribute to him in the preface of her novel Malgrétout. Despite everything she recounts the shipwreck of which he was a victim and expresses with emotion her friendship for this courageous friend. Plauchut much loved by the Sand family and particularly George's granddaughters who nicknamed him Uncle Plauchemar was an integral part until his death in January 1909. The handwritten signed inscriptions on La Mare au Diable are very rare this one is from a superb provenance. Michel Lévy frères hardcover
