A Beautifully Bound Limited Edition of Émile Zola's The Rougon-Macquart

Émile Zola. THE ROUGON-MACQUART. (12) volumes (complete). Philadelphia: Printed for subscribers only by George Barrie & Son, n.d. [circa 1896-1904]. Limited edition; no. 434 of 1000 for-sale copies printed on Japanese vellum paper. "Printed from the textual plates made by The Lutetian Society of London." Bound in purple morocco with iris onlay to front cover, the spines with raised bands and compartments with floral onlays or gilt lettering, with all edges gilt, white silk-lined endpapers, and gilt-decorated orange morocco doublures with central coat of arms and gilt monogram. 8vo; to include: L'Assommoir, Arthur Symons, trans. (2 volumes); La Curée, A. Teixeira de Mattos, trans. (2 volumes); Nana, Victor Plarr, trans. (2 volumes); Pot-Bouille, Percy Pinkerton, trans. (2 volumes); La Terre, Ernest Dowson, trans. (2 volumes); Germinal, Havelock Ellis, trans. (2 volumes). Titles printed in red and black; each volume with etched illustrations with captioned tissue guards including frontispieces.

Each 8 1/2 x 5 5/8 in.

This edition is extremely scarce with only four copies found in institutions, per WorldCat at time of review. The set includes six novels from Zola's well-known The Rougon-Macquart, all uniformly and beautifully bound.

Boards with browning (mostly to edges and spines), occasional rubbing or small scuff to leather, several volumes with boards slightly bowed or spines very mildly cocked, and light creasing to joints with one volume with a small crack starting; light wear to gilt page edges; limitation statement in all but one volume; overall extremely clean text blocks with toning, occasional light handling wear such as a small tear, foxing (concentrated on tissue guards and endpapers), and most volumes with a couple of small damp stains at endpapers. A lovely, very good set.