BASTIDE, J.- F.

Paris, Libraire Henri Leclerc, 1905. 8vo. xv,+ (blank),+ 52,+ (1) pp. Colour illustrations in text. Printed on thick paper. Dark blue morocco, gilt spine with five rasied bands, borders gilt with green inlays, large inner bordures with fleurons in corners, extra end papers, top edge gilt the other trimmed and wrapper presered (René Kiefer). Spine faded and slight crack in hinges. Book plate of Göran Schultz. Edition printed in 150 copies, of which this nr 47. Jean-François Bastide (1724-98) was a Frensh writer and playwright. The novel ”La Petite Maison” was first published in ”La nouveau spectateur” 1758, and revised in 1763. ”An allegory of the sensuous fascination of art to overcome the heart. A libertine, the Marquis de Trémicour, determinedly sets out to seduce an art student, Mélite, in his Petite Maison – a maison de plaisance, or house of pleasure in the suburbs of Paris designed for assignations. In a miniature Musée des Arts Décoratifs the rooms provide pictorial foreplay as Mélite admires the erotic paintings and etchings, with the artists identified for the reader in footnotes in the text. She loses her wager that she will not give in to him and is seduced in a reverie of aesthetic ecstasy as she is she overcome with sensation on the final page.”