Dumas | The Forty-Five Guardsman, London, 1849; The Black Tulip, London, 1851, half calf

Alexandre Dumas

Two English translations in one volume, 1848-1851, comprising:

The Forty-Five Guardsmen.... With an authentic portrait. London: E. Appleyard, 1848, lithographed frontispiece portrait, 4 lithographed plates by H. Carter and F.N. Shepherd

The Black Tulip... with illustrations. London: E. Appleyard, 1851, steel-engraved illustrations by George Cruikshank within the text

2 works in one volume, 8vo (245 x 153mm.), near-contemporary half calf over marbled boards, spine gilt in compartments, marbled edges, extremities slightly rubbed

The first work, Les quarante-cinq, was a sequel to La dame de Monsoreau, and was first published in May-October 1847; this is THE FIRST ENGLISH EDITION. It was originally issued in 30 parts of eight pages each.

The second work, La tulipe noire, "one of Dumas' daintiest shorter novels" (Reed, p. 253) was first published in 1850 by Baudry in Paris. A translation into English was published in New York in 1850 by W.F. Burgess. VERY RARE: the present translation is not recorded by Munro, though F.W. Reed's A bibliography of Alexandre Dumas père (1933) states it should exist, though only by report from W.J. Harris, First printed translations into English of the great foreign classics (1909).

These are both from Roscoe's Library Edition, one of several series of novels at the time which were priced cheaply to make them accessible. The first work is recorded in just two copies in Copac, in the British Library and the University of Manchester, and the second work is not recorded there.

LITERATURE

1st work: Munro p.131-132; 2nd work: not listed in Munro, nor does it appear in Cruikshank bibliographies

PROVENANCE

A.d.M. Wilson, signature at head of first work