Le Chevalier d'Harmental [The Conspirators]

Paris: Dumont, 1842. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Le Chevalier d'Harmental unleashed Dumaspalooza, his towering and best-selling historical romances (romans d'or). It was the first of Dumas' novels researched by Maquet (you can talk about the miracle, but you never talk about the angel). Here's the history. In 1838 Dumas serialized, and then published, his first novel, Le Capitaine Paul, to temperate notice, followed later that year by Acté, which was much better written, but mistakenly set in ancient Rome, and published during an apathy for the ancients following the Roman revival. For 3 years he pressed on, sharpened his skills, perfected his craft, surmised the intricacies of historical romance, and intuited the preferences of his readers, then unified all 4 into a new ritual of high art, exploding on the scene with this novel, the first coupling of an historical romance with a cloak and dagger thriller. It's set (1718), in the midst of The Cellamare Conspiracy, a critical pivot in European history, following the 1715 death of Louis XIV and the French throne's passing to his 5-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV. It is more sinister, sophisticated, malicious, and grimmer than any historical novel that preceded it, and it's grittier than most of those that succeeded it. The regent (the Duc d'Orléans) and the regency council (led by the Duc d'Maine) quarreled, plotted, and tried to murder each other in factions. The Spanish ambassador (Cellamare) got involved, and forged a seditious intrigue, but lost his gamble to play one clique against the other and install the Spanish King as the new regent. "The history of ideas is the history of the grudges of solitary men." -Cioran This is an unquestionably important book in the chronicles of literature, no less than the modern historical romance's genotype, a descendant of ideas first conceived, formularized, and executed by others, but Dumas leaves none of them undeveloped. He interrogates their assumptions more deeply and traces their implications more exhaustively. Where (earlier) authors insisted in general terms, he undertakes a famously comprehensive, exacting, and sustained reconnaissance, scrutiny, disassembly, and reassembly of the subject. Where they had cautiously compared, he expounds a bold, amplified, highly matured conception of writing as a science, a systematically self-reflexive mode of engaging the reader and knowing the world. 4 vols. 1st edition of Dumas' first successful novel. It follows a daily serialization in the newspaper Le Siècle (The Age, or The Century, depending on who is translating). Reed's bibliography (A Bibliography of Alexandre Dumas Père, 1933, 1974) based on his gigantic collection now at Auckland (NZ), lists Dumont's 1843 Paris edition of this title as the 1st edition, so he didn't have, or see, or hear about, this one dated 1842. Munro (Alexandre Dumas Pere. A Bibliography of Works Published in French) lists a Brussels edition first but gets all the dates right, having Dumont's Paris edition, and the 3 Brussels editions he saw, all dated 1842. Rare. Rare Book Hub says no sets sold at auction in 50 years. OCLC lists only 2 sets institutionalized world-wide (at Indiana and Yale), and a half set, vols. I and II only (at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris), and we found a defective and imperfect set for sale in France, and even if that misses a set, or 2, or 3 buried somewhere unnoticed, it's still an item of indubitable rarity. Contemporary half French speckled roan, rubbing to sides, else a very good set with nice margins (4 5/8" X 7 1/4"), complete with half-titles, ads, and contents leaves. A noble copy (Royal Bavarian), ex-Prince Carl V. Bayern Guter, from the castle library of Tegernsee, with his oval, armorial stamp to each title page.