EMIL ZOLA: THE LOVE CARD. VOL. I-II IN 1 VOL. [1879]

Description

First Polish edition, 1879 Very good condition
First Polish edition of the eighth part of the famous “Rougon-Macquart series” by Émile Zola (1840-1902) – a leading representative of naturalism and one of the most important writers of French literature of the 19th century. The copy was published in 1879, just a year after the world premiere of the original (Paris, Charpentier, 1878), which in the censorship and communication realities of the time was a rarity. The translation was done by Wincenta Limanowska – a respected popularizer of French literature, translator of Hugo and Erckmann-Chatriana, among others, known for her fidelity to the original and ability to convey the mood of the novel. The edition comes from the Lviv Polish Bookstore and was published in two volumes.
The book block is clean, preserved in very good condition. The copy was bound contemporarily in an exclusive, handmade binding of natural leather by the Polish Antiquarian Bookbinders’ Bindery – which makes it both a valuable collector’s item and a real ornament of the library.
“A Love Card” is the most intimate and psychological part of the series. Helena Mouret, a young widow, moves with her sick daughter Joanna to Paris, where she falls in love with a neighbor – Dr. Deberle. The rift between passion, maternal duty and social conventions leads to tragedy: jealous of her mother, Joanna dies, and Helena – blaming herself for her death – breaks up with her beloved and leaves Paris. The novel is one of the first such insightful studies of the female psyche in French literature, and Joan’s nervous illness is a naturalistic study of the theory of heredity.
A must-read item for collectors of the first translations of world literature, lovers of naturalism and bibliophiles looking for objects of documented historical value.

2-19-A-Y