Léon Gozlan - Keepsake des contes merveilleux - 1842

Keepsake of the Wonderful Tales

The Keepsake of the Wonderful Tales is a Parisian periodical published during the July Monarchy, appearing in the form of fascicles or successive installments, each bearing a distinct subtitle. The BnF preserves the installment titled Albums of the Brilliant and the Roses, dated 1844, which places the entire publication in the approximate 1842–1846 window, at the heart of the great vogue for French romantic keepsakes. This copy gathers four distinct installments: the 1st volume (Album of Famous Storytellers), the 2nd volume (Album of Literary Diamonds), the 3rd volume (Album of Amusing Varieties), and the 5th volume (Album of Sparks), with the absence of the 4th volume being common in sets of this type.

The Keepsake of the Wonderful Tales fits into the broad production of French romantic keepsakes that flourished under the July Monarchy—from the 1830s to the late 1840s—direct heirs of the English tradition of the keepsake-gift started around 1820. These compilations of texts and engravings, at once literary anthologies and gift books, are primarily defined by the refinement of their physical characteristics: abundant illustration, decorated boards. They played a non-negligible role in promoting and disseminating Romanticism by publishing as collectives—selections, short stories, tales, poems, and essays by contemporary authors or from the classical period—under the guise of a collective volume. Their target audience was essentially feminine and bourgeois, and their diffusion followed the seasonality of New Year’s gifts and year-end celebrations.

The Keepsake of the Wonderful Tales distinguishes itself from more eclectic keepsakes (romantic short stories, travel narratives, historical anecdotes) by its clearly stated thematic unity: it is entirely devoted to the wonderful tales, a genre that indeed experienced a notable Romantic revaluation during these years, after having been regarded as anachronistic or childish in the previous decades. The numbering in “albums” with varied and enchanting subtitles—literary diamonds, sparks, amusing varieties, famous storytellers—is characteristic of the editorial practice of periodic keepsakes, which sought to entice the purchaser with evocative titles, promising brilliance, lightness, and cultivated entertainment.

No date (circa 1842), 17 × 24 cm, about 450 pages. Half-leather ebony binding, smooth spine with gilt title. Binding rubbed, foxing.