Histoire de la Révolution française.

Tours : Ad. Mame et Cie, Impimeurs-Libraires, 1857. Second edition. Octavo (245 x 160 mm), in an exquisite binding commissioned by the publisher Alfred Mame, of full red crushed morocco with intricate and extensive gilt-tooled decoration repeated on both boards, spine in six compartments with ornate gilt ornament and title lettered in gilt; elaborate gilt dentelles; gilt edges gauffered with a repeated geometric motif in red, blue and black; marbled endpapers; pp. vii, [1 blank], 680; illustrated with 10 lithographed plates  (including frontispiece); scattered light foxing, especially to the plates and tissue guards, but the binding is firm and in superb condition; verso of rear endpaper with old pencilled notes signed by C. Privat (who in 1945 was elected Vice-President of the Syndicat National de la Librairie Ancienne et Moderne): ‘provient de la bibliothèque de l’editéur à Tours fin 1939‘, and: ‘Specimen de reliure que Mame faisait executer pour lui pendant les vacances de ses doreurs‘.

A dazzling example of Belle Époque reliure d’art.

The signed pencilled notes in the hand of C. Privat state that this book was acquired in Tours in late 1939 as part of the personal library of the publisher Alfred Mame, and that it is a specimen binding which Mame had made for himself while his own book gilders were on leave.