DURAS, Claire de Durfort, duchesse de. ~ Ourika. Paris: [J. Pinard for] Ladvocat, 1824.
12mo (162 × 92 mm), pp. 172, [8] including half-title, and publishers’ adverts. Very minor loss to a couple of upper margins (careless opening or insects). Contemporary marbled sheep, spine gilt. A very good copy.
First trade edition of a novel which had first appeared in a small edition (between 25 and 40 copies) privately circulated in December 1823. Ourika, based on fact, and influenced by Rousseau and Chateaubriand, is the complex story of a black African child raised in aristocratic circles in Revolutionary France. It is the first fully developed attempt to portray a black heroine in Europe and the first French novel with a black female narrator. This edition bears the statement on the verso of the half-title ‘Publié au profit d’un établissement de charité, and has no edition statement on the title-page, which bears a quotation from Byron (as called for). A true best-seller, at least four editions appeared in 1824, together with four plays and two poems based on the novel.