Leopold von SACHER-MASOCH / Bakalowicz / Éloïse Baille - La Vénus à la fourrure. Roman sur la flagellation. - 1902

Sacher-Masoch (Leopold von). Venus in Furs. A novel about flogging.

Paris: Charles Carrington, 1902. —
In-8, 214x134 mm - (5 ff.), XXXVII, 216 pp.
frontispiece after Bakalowicz,

Flesh-colored box, vertical strip of slightly raised squares, cut by the author’s name and the title in black, framed by 4 curved red lines, at the center of the first cover, date 1902 in red and a horizontal band of 9 black dots at the center of the second cover, spine smooth and mute, inside pages and endpapers of red velvet, not trimmed, velvet slipcase in beige, lined with black velvet (Éloïse Baille).

Binet, Martin Van Maele or the devil hides in the detail, 2017, 133.

First French edition, translated from German and prefaced by Raphaël Ledos de Beaufort
This text, first published in 1870 under the title Venus im Pelz, is an autobiographical erotic novel exploring themes of masochism, fetishism and female domination. The author, under the persona of Séverin, describes his quest for a relationship in which he embodies the slave subjected to a cruel and dominant woman, Wanda von Dunajew, dressed in fur.

The edition is illustrated with a frontispiece after Bakalowicz and 20 vignettes in the text, two by Martin van Maele (pp. 149 and 169).

Limited print run of 500 numbered copies on Hollandaise paper (no. 261).
A very fine copy in the original binding by Éloïse Baille, unsigned.
The black velvet of the slipcase linings has left traces on the boards in places.