Gustave Flaubert - Oeuvres complètes de Gustave Flaubert - 1885

First edition in collective form containing a few unpublished pieces. An etching portrait by Commanville. An edition ne varietur based on the manuscripts of Mrs. Commanville, Flaubert’s niece to whom he had bequeathed his manuscripts. Printed on good laid paper. The Temptation of Saint Anthony is printed on a thicker, more substantial laid paper. Foxing on all volumes. This edition is printed on a much better paper than the editions issued by Henri May, with whom the exploitation rights were shared; it is dated 1885 whereas May’s printings have no date.
Bindings in half brown marbled morocco of the period. Spine with Janséniste raised bands. Author, title and pagination gilded. Decorative borders on the covers. Signs of wear.
Aside from the works that had already been published and a volume for the theatre, this edition includes the study on Flaubert by Maupassant placed before Bouvard and Pécuchet and a few unpublished pieces after the Mélanges: Par les champs et par les grèves, La danse des morts, Novembre, Rabelais (a youth study), Smarh, A bord de la Cange (fragments of a journey in the Orient). Gustave Flaubert died in 1880.