Banville, Esquisses Parisiennes, c.1859

Théodore Banville, Esquisses Parisiennes (Parisian Sketches). Undated (1859). Poulet-Malassis (Uncredited – frontispiece missing?): Paris. Hardbound Sextodecimo, 434 pp. First Edition, with inscription by the author: “À mon ami Edouard Plouvier / son  vieux et fidèle ami / Théodore Banville” (“To my friend Edouard Plouvier / his old and faithful friend”) + stamp: “28me Reg’ d’Infanterie / Bibliothèque / des Sous-Officiers.

 

Théodore Banville was a fixture in the french avant-garde for over fifty years, and an important link between the Romanticist and Parnassian generations. This collection of satirical stories about modern Parisian life and culture was published by Poulet-Mallasis, who had published Baudelaire's Flowers of Evil two years earlier. This well-read copy was a gift to his friend, the playwright and poet Eduard Plouvier, and later ended up in the regimental library of an army unit.