Lost Illusions

Issued from 1837 to 1843 as part of the Human Comedy, this novel follows Lucien Chardon, a handsome provincial poet who takes the name de Rubempre. In Angouleme he is taken up by Mme de Bargeton, then dropped when they reach Paris. Lucien enters journalism, theatre claques, and money-lending, while his sister Eve and her husband David Sechard struggle at home to keep a printing house and a paper-making invention from creditors. Parisian editors, actresses, and dandies use Lucien as copy and as ornament. The book is a study of literary ambition and the press as a market, split between the provinces and the capital.

Quarter-bound in brown cloth with crushed silk sides blocked with a design by Frances Button. Brown endleaves. Brown slipcase.