Guy de Maupassant - La Vie errante [1/5 exemplaire de tête sur Japon] - 1890

MAUPASSANT (Guy de).

The Wandering Life, by Guy de Maupassant.

Paris, Paul Ollendorff, 1890 [printed by Maison Quantin].

1 volume, large in-18 (19 x 14 cm), consisting of 233-1 pages. Softcover. Very slight dusting of the cover. The spine is intact (not split). This volume has been handled very little since its printing in 1890.

Original edition

One of the 5 copies from Japan (our copy was not numbered at the composteur — the cover clearly bears the mention JAPAN on the back).

Entirely uncut copy, never read, exceptional and moving.

The luxury edition is as follows: 5 copies sold in Japan for 20 francs and 100 copies sold in Holland for 8 francs.

His natural aversion to society led Maupassant to retreat into solitude and meditation. He traveled extensively in Algeria, Italy, England, Brittany, Sicily, and Auvergne, and each journey was for him synonymous with a new volume. The wandering life recounts these journeys. This book is also known as Stories of Africa.

I left Paris and even France because the Eiffel Tower eventually bored me too much. Not only could you see it everywhere, but you also found it everywhere, made of all known materials, exposed to all the windows, an unavoidable and torturous nightmare. It’s not only her, by the way, that gave me an irresistible desire to live alone for a while, but everything surrounding her, inside, on top, in the vicinity. How could all the newspapers have dared to talk to us about new architecture regarding this metal carcass, when architecture, perhaps the most misunderstood and forgotten of the arts today, is also perhaps the most aesthetic, the most mysterious, and the most filled with ideas?

In Algeria and the Algerian Sahara, all women, whether from cities or tribes, are dressed in white. In Tunisia, on the contrary, city women are wrapped from head to toe in black muslin veils, making strange appearances in the bright streets of southern small towns, while rural women are dressed in large, beautiful blue robes that give them an even more biblical appearance. (...) On this soothing and warm land, so captivating that the legend of the Lotophages was born on the island of Djerba, the air is more flavorful than anywhere else, the sun warmer, the day brighter, but the heart does not know how to love. Beautiful and passionate women are unaware of our tenderness. Their simple souls remain strangers to sentimental emotions, and their kisses, it is said, do not give birth to dreams.

Muslim women can enter like men, but they almost never do. God is too distant, too high, too imposing for them. They wouldn't dare tell Him all their worries, confide all their sorrows, ask for all the small favors, small consolations, small help against family, against the husband, against the children, which women's hearts need. A more humble intermediary is needed between such a great God and such small women.

Reference: Vicaire, Manual of the 19th Century Book Lover, V-622.

Beautiful copy remaining in paperback of this luxurious edition that has become elusive.

Exceptional and desirable in every way.