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109 - FLAUBERT, Gustave. *L'Éducation sentimentale*.
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Estimate €300 - €500
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Description
FLAUBERT, Gustave. *L'Éducation sentimentale*. Paris, Michel Lévy frères, 1870. In-8 (22 x 15 cm), brown half-basane, ribbed spine decorated with repeated gilt fleurons. Title gilt on a red leather label. Name in gilt letters (C. Vitnauer) on the tail. 2 vols.: 427 pp. – 331 pp. Scuffs and foxing. The first edition of *L’Éducation sentimentale* in a contemporary binding. A rare copy with no edition details on the title pages. The story of a young man, begun at the end of 1863 and written between September 1864 and May 1869, *L’Éducation sentimentale* was published in November 1869. Although rich in autobiographical detail, the work bears no resemblance to the early novel of the same title written in 1845. The enchanting presence of Madame Arnoux, who dominates the entire work just as Madame Schlesinger dominated Flaubert’s thoughts, undoubtedly makes this novel an irrefutable testimony to the writer’s emotional life, with the interplay and overlap of dream and reality of which this work is the bitter and searing fruit. Woven from reality and imagination, *L’Éducation* is also the moral history of the men who lived under the July Monarchy, and an evocation of all Parisian life in the fifth decade of the nineteenth century—that political and social ferment which led to the revolution of 1848 and the coup d’état. “How can we fail today to recognise in this quintessentially Flaubertian book—and in this work, which is Goethean in its scope—one of the seminal works of modern literature, which has subsequently inspired so many imitations of this melancholic hero? Certain passages, such as those describing the meeting of the two lovers at the end of the novel, rank among the purest and most lyrical in Flaubert’s entire oeuvre.” (Vicaire, A Handbook for Lovers of 19th-Century Books, 726). Complete in two volumes.
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About the sale Collectors’ books for sale – First editions – Illustrated editions – Varia IV
Auction location
Auction time 11/02/2026 at 2:00 PM
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