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First edition of this classic belle époque survey of the culture of the café-concert and the circus. Ibels was one of the major commercial graphic artists of the period and a collaborator of Toulouse-Lautrec’s.

First edition, inscribed on the initial blank ‘A son ami H. de la Pommeraye de Edouard Fournier’, presumably Henri de Lapommeraye (1839–1891), theatre critic and men of letters. ‘The Butte des Moulins (“windmill hill”) was a small hill—part natural, part built up—that had existed in Paris since ancient times. Dotted with windmills, the working-class neighborhood was dominated by small trades until the mid-1870s, when its population was cleared and the hill was leveled to construct the avenue de l’Opéra, which would become celebrated as the most glamorous street in Paris’ (The Met).

First edition.

First edition of an account of some of Paris’s famous cafés: le café Foy, le Procope, le Buci, la brasserie Saint-Séverin, etc.

Madame Gabrielle Boissier ran a finishing school (’Etablissement libre d’Enseignement supérieur’). for English and American girls in an impressive house at 14 avenue Gourgand, in the 17th arrondissement. The prospectus illustrates its elegant interior (salons, dining room, two libraries and bedrooms). The text includes an enthusiastic testimonial in English describing life at the school and its associated activities.

A charming chromolithographed souvenir book, illustrating the major sights. Inscribed ‘E. A. de R. D. le 19 Avril’ on inside front cover.

First edition of a sumptuous publication documenting the flood.

A profusely illustrated publication produced by the Red Cross to raise funds for those affected by the Great Flood.

A fascinating photographic record of the Great Flood of 1910, in which the waters of the Seine rose by over 25 feet, flooding large parts of the of the centre of the city. Thousands of Parisians were evacuated from their homes but, amazingly, no deaths were reported. The present series also documents the effect on the city’s suburbs and surrounding towns.

First edition of an illustrated pocket guide to Paris’s new park, published in the series ‘Bibliothèque des chemins de fer’.

A sketchbook made by British architect, George Truefitt (1824-1902), first at Antibes and then in Paris, recording architectural details as well as general views and other sights of interest. There are some delightful details of Closebrooks, the Antibes villa he had designed for banker and businessman William Brooks Close, together with several metalwork details.

Truefitt travelled to the 1889 Exposition at the invitation of Brooks and his wife. In this album he made a brief journal of his visit, and preserved 25 excellent sketches. The first is an amusing sketch of ladies lying head-to-head on a shipboard saloon bench, while the others are mainly architectural views including of the Eiffel Tower seen from his hotel room at Maurice’s; architectural details of the chateau at Fontainebleau; some from the Hôtel de Cluny and metalwork details from the Trocadéro as well as a few other small sketches of people. There is an especially good view of the crowded exhibition around the dome of the Trocadéro sketched from his lunch table at Spiers and Pond’s restaurant. The journal and drawings are pasted into a sketchbook which also includes a sketch journal of his earlier visit to Antibes in 1886.

Truefitt was prolific in his contribution to Victorian British architecture, best known for his work at Tufnell Park in London, for numerous country churches and for his remodelling of the Brooks estate at Glen Tanar in Scotland.

First edition, ‘tiré à petit nombre pour les amateurs’ for the series ‘Petite bibliothèque des curieux’. A rare work in which ‘the author reviews the famous wines and the principal cabarets of the 17th century and recounts many interesting and amusing anecdotes about them’ (Bitting).
Bitting, p. 160; Vicaire, col. 366.

First edition: one of 450 numbered copies printed on Hollande, out of a total print run of 500. The bibliophile journalist and poet Alexandre Piédagnel (1831–1903)—friend of Mallarmé, secretary to Jules Janin, editor of the Librairie des bibliophiles—here profiles Lécureux (1795–1875), a Paris second-hand bookseller for more than fifty years, ‘unique en son genre’ (p. 23), who specialised in selling odd volumes.
It opens with an extract from a new, enlarged edition of Piédagnel’s book Jules Janin, ‘Les joies du bibliophile’.

First edition. ‘Cet ouvrage a été tiré sur papier de Hollande Van Gelder à 244 exemplaires numérotés à la presse’, this being no. 203. It is also been inscribed by Mithouard (1864–1919), an essayist and poet, ‘A mon ami Désiré Ferry’ (1886–1940), a writer and publisher who fought in both Wars and served as Minister of Marine and then Health in the 1930s.
The Bièvre is Paris’s second river and flows into the Seine near the Ile de la Cité, but due to various flooding incidents was culverted during the nineteenth century, as alluded to in the title of the present work.

First edition: an account of anything in the city on wheels, from fine carriages to an amputee beggar pushing himself around on a wheeled cart, with attractive silhouette illustrations by Louis Bombled (1862–1927).

First edition, listing the various grievances of 48 Paris coachmen against certain monopolistic rights enjoyed by other coaches, from the library of Paul Lacombe (1848–1921), bibliographer and collector. The sale of his library, including shelf after shelf of books about Paris, took place across four days in June 1922; five more days of sales followed early the next year. The present work was part of lot 2133 (31 Jan. 1923), in the section ‘Voitures et Postes’. Lacombe’s bookplate was etched, with drypoint, by his friend François Courboin (1865–1926, by day sous-bibliothécaire in the Bibliothèque nationale’s print department) and shows the bouquinistes’ stalls by the Pont Neuf, which Lacombe must have constantly haunted.

First edition in this form; a second edition followed in 1815. It was also issued uncoloured. ‘At least 14, and very probably all of the plates, are copies of images published around 1790 in an octavo suite, called Vues pittoresques des principaux édifices de Paris, “by Le Campion, Guyot, Roger, Guillot, Belley, Mlle Guyot, after Testard and Sergent” (see NUC). The last two are identifiable as the Parisian artists and engravers François Martin Testard (active 1790–1819) and Antoine François Sergent-Marceau (1751–1847), with “Segard” on the title-page probably being an error for “Sergent”’ (Library Hub Discover).
‘The City of Paris has always been an object of much interest to the Traveller. Recent events, which have filled every mind with astonishment, gratitude, and joy, have rendered the Metropolis of France, now enriched with the choicest spoils of conquest, and the noblest specimens of art, doubly interesting. From every neighbouring kingdom, and especially from the shores of Britain, thousands have eagerly flocked to that Capital, formerly the scene of the most horrible atrocities, now the depository of the most valuable treasures’ (Advertisement).
Abbey, Travel 104; Tooley, English Books with Coloured Plates 1790 to 1860, 448.

First (and only) edition: an attractive children’s book about the Exposition Universelle, famous for the creation of the Eiffel Tower, which, naturally, little Madeleine and Jacques here rush to visit first in this story before going on to explore the rest of the world’s fair: trying out Elias Howe’s sewing machine and Edison’s phonograph and sampling the delights of Japan, Russia, Algeria, Senegal, and New Caledonia.
Cotsen 814 (‘Élodie Lamarque is a pseudonym of Gaston Bonnefont [1851–1911]’).

First edition of this lighthearted account of the typical Parisian Sunday, with superb etched vignettes by Lepère depicting picnics, rambles, cycling, drinking, dining and boating, complete with an original sketch for the first vignette, initialled by the artist. Number 50 of 250 copies. While Lepère is best known for his work in the revival of the woodcut in France, his immense talent in other media, including etching is attested by his many book illustrations. This deluxe copy, bound by Lenoë, has an inlaid engraved stone plaquette, evidently the work of Lepère, and perhaps an experimental or trial plate - its smooth surface has been incised in the manner of a woodcut (suggesting a soft stone like soapstone or alabaster) and inked. It depicts a tavern or dining room scene with diners, drinkers and a breastfeeding mother in the foreground. Carteret IV, 294. ‘Dernière et très belle publication de cet éditeur, très cotée... maintenant que le livre est très coté, on peur dire que c’est une des meillures et des plus pittoresques de l’artiste, la plus importante avec des eaux-fortes’.

First edition: a survey of the city in 1860 (its buildings and infrastructure, ),with long sections on the Asile impérial de Vincennes, founded in 1855 for convalescent workers, the Maison Eugène-Napoléon, a school for poor girls set up in 1858, and the history of Paris’s theatres after Napoleon limited the number of theatres in the city to twelve, then eight.
Vicaire V, 1021.