La Princesse lumière Conte de fées. by BARTEL, Jehan [pseudonym…

8vo (165 × 95 mm), pp. 51, [5] (including final bank), including photographically reproduced additional title and 2 illustration. Original pale blue wrappers preserved in smooth calf, tooled in blind and tinted, spine with 5 raised bands, silk marker. Slight abrasion to foot of spine (distinctly like tooth marks of small dog, cat or infant), but otherwise fine. Inscription to half-title: ‘A ma bien chère Maman: - que cette petite princesse Lumière soit le gage de ma profonde et eternelle tendresse auprès de celle qui est la grande et vraie Lumière dans ma vie - Jehanette Août 1905 (with a contemporary French postage stamp).

A privately-published fairy tale by a young girl, of which we can find no copy in any public collection, nor any obvious trace of the work or its author elsewhere. The book is printed on a handsome glazed paper and incorporates three illustrations, presumably the work of the author. It was almost certainly her who also decorated the smooth calf binding with a whimsical design depicting an owl in a tree by moonlight. The printed dedication is to ‘ma chère petite Cousine Renée’, with this copy of what was presumably a very small edition inscribed to the author’s mother.