Fables de S. Lavalette illustrées de nouvelles eaux-fortes par Granville.
Paris, Hetzel, 1847.
4to (278 x 192 mm), modern tan half calf, untrimmed, original wrappers preserved (modern binding).
Third edition of this collection of fables, illustrated with 32 hors-texte etchings after Grandville.
A Tocqueville relic, bearing witness to the close ties between the Tocqueville and Beaumont families.
The volume was presented by Charles-Guillaume Sourdille de La Valette (1792–1852) to Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), with the author’s autograph presentation inscription: “A Monsieur de Tocqueville, offert par l’auteur” [“To Monsieur de Tocqueville, presented by the author”].
A little over a year after Tocqueville’s death, his widow gave the volume to Paul de Beaumont (1851–1883), the son of Tocqueville’s close friend Gustave de Beaumont (1802–1866), adding this note beneath La Valette’s inscription: “donné par Mme de Tocqueville le 24 janvier 1860 à Paul Baumont” [“given by Madame de Tocqueville on 24 January 1860 to Paul Beaumont”]. Paul de Beaumont was nine years old when he received this illustrated book of fables.
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) and Gustave de Beaumont (1802–1866) had been commissioned by the French government in 1831 to travel to the United States and study the American penitentiary system. They sailed aboard Le Havre, and Beaumont wrote to his father of his friend: “Il est évident que nos destinées sont et seront toujours communes” [“It is clear that our destinies are, and always will be, bound together”]. It was from this journey that Tocqueville would develop his celebrated De la démocratie en Amérique (Democracy in America).
Charles-Guillaume Sourdille de La Valette (1792–1852), Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859), and Gustave de Beaumont (1802–1866) all served as deputies from 1839 onwards. It was probably through this parliamentary connection that Sourdille de La Valette presented the volume to Tocqueville.
2 200€
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