Un an de la vie d un jeune homme

Paris: Sazerac et Duval, Engelmann, Langlumè & Brossier, 1824. First Edition of the Illustrator's First Book
With Seventeen Hand-Colored Lithograph Plates

ADAM, Victor. Un An de la Vie d un Jeune Homme. Histoire véritable en 17 Chapitres. Escrits par lui-même et Lithographiés par Victor Adam. Paris: Sazerac et Duval, Engelmann, Langlumè & Brossier, 1824.

First edition. Folio (13 1/4 x 9 7/8 inches; 336 x 251 mm.). Facsimile cover title. Seventeen superb hand-colored lithograph plates printed by Langlumé.

Modern royal blue cloth, front cover with facsimile title pasted on. Short marginal tear, neatly repaired to lower margin of first plate, not affecting image. Plates 2, 8, 15 & 17 with the blind stamp of the publisher Sazerac et Duval in lower blank margin. A very good example.

One year in the life of a young man. A true story in seventeen chapters. Written by himself and lithographed by Victor Adam.

Victor Adam (1801-1865) is better known for his later works of pictorial journalism or for his many lithographs of military history than for his early works of fashion and society life. "His immense production contains many amusing albums concerning the life of the time such as Un an dans la vie de jeune homme. This series is a sort of bourgeois rake's progress. A young man from the country comes to Paris to sample its pleasures. He acquires a new wardrobe; buys a horse; is duped by gamblers, makes a conquest of a pretty lady; exclaims, 'Jasmin! she seemed so artless,' as he lies recovering from the resulting malady; is imprisoned for debt; writes at last to 'the old one,' a buxom woman of means; and is accepted by her in the final plate. The series is unusual among the albums of the time in that it tells a consecutive story, and it certainly has more spirit and finish than Adam's usual work" (Ray).

A lovely copy of the first book by this gifted painter and illustrator. Very scarce.

The Plates:

1. J'arrive! (I arrive!)
2. Je ne me reconnais plus. (I do not recognize myself anymore.)
3. C'est superbe! (It is superb!)
4. Elle me regarde! Dieu quel bonheur! (She's looking at me! God what happiness!)
5. C'est une femme honnête. (She is an honest woman.)
6. Je ne pouvais pas aller à pied. (I couldn't walk.)
7. C'est à qui m'aura. (Who's going to get me?)
8. Comment Docteur! (How Doctor!)
9. Jasmin!...elle avait l'air si ingénu!! (Jasmine! ... she looked so ingenuous !!)
10. Quel guignon! (What a mess!)
11. Des mémoires! Fi donc. (Memories! Fi then.)
12. Je le savais. (I knew it.)
13. St. Pelagie...charmant séjour! (St. Pelagie... lovely stay!)
14. Quels inhumains! Me mettre dehors! (What inhumans! Kick me out!)
15. Aux grands maux les grands remédes. (To great ills, great remedies.)
16. La simpiternelle serait ma bisaïeule. (The simpiternal would be my grandmother.)
17. Il faut faire une Fin! Je lépouse. (We must make an End! I marry him.)

Bobins V, 1523; Hiler, p.6; Lipperheide 3561; Ray. Art of the French Illustrated Book, 126.