LA MAISON DES AIEULES suivie de MADEMOISELLE ANNA, TRES HUMBLE POUPÉE. [i.e., HOUSE OF GRANDMOTHERS followed by MISS ANNA, A VERY HUMBLE DOLL]

Paris: Henri Floury, 1927. No. 270 OF 274 COPIES on vélin d'Arches (of a total edition of 302). 245 x 192 mm. (9 1/2 x 7 1/2"). 84, [2], pp., [1] leaf (colophon).
Publisher's color illustrated wrappers, original glassine. With 76 illustrations including wrapper image by André Hellé, hand colored in gouache via pochoir stenciling by J. Saudé. ◆Half-inch joint split at spine head and tail, mild edgewear, glassine with many small chips to spine and edges, but AN EXTREMELY APPEALING COPY, the fragile book quite solid, and internally quite clean, fresh, and bright, with very rich coloring.

Illustrated with great charm in vivid colors, this volume is comprised of two Loti stories that harken back to his childhood in the city of Saint Pierre on Oléron, an island off France's Atlantic coast. "House of Grandmothers" and "Miss Anna, A Very Humble Doll" are memoirs intended for children of all ages. "Pierre Loti" is the pseudonym for Julien Viaud (1850-1923), who wrote popular novels at the same time that he was a career officer in the French navy. He was known for incorporating material from his life and details from the exotic places he visited to give his novels deep levels of emotion and authenticity. Inspired by Monet, he endeavored to write as the Impressionists painted. Contemporary critic Edmund Gosse said that "at his best Pierre Loti was unquestionably the finest descriptive writer of the day. In the delicate exactitude with which he reproduced the impression given to his own alert nerves by unfamiliar forms, colors, sounds and perfumes, he was without a rival. But he was not satisfied with this exterior charm; he desired to blend with it a moral sensibility of the extremest refinement, at once sensual and ethereal." Artist André Hellé produced humorous illustrations for all the leading French periodicals during the first half of the 20th century. Though famed as a theater set designer, he illustrated many books, most of which, as here, were inspired by childhood. This endearing but fragile book has, not surprisingly, become quite rare in the marketplace, and it is remarkably so in the original glassine..