L'Atelier d'un Peintre. Scènes de la Vie privée.
viii, 370 pp.; 2 p.l., 314 pp. Two vols. 8vo, cont. half-calf & marbled boards (minor foxing), spines stamped in blind & gilt, green leather lettering pieces on spines. Paris: Charpentier & Dumont, 1833.
First edition. Desbordes-Valmore (1786-1859), poet, novelist, actress, and singer, is one of the founders of French romantic poetry. Her friend Balzac used her as the model for the title character of La Cousine Bette. She had a difficult and complicated life which is reflected in this autobiographical novel based on her stay, in 1808, with her uncle, the painter Constant Desbordes, in the old Capuchin monastery... More