Voyages en Zigzag, ou Excursions d'un Pensionnat en Vacances dans les Cantons Suisses et Sur le Revers Italien des Alpes

Paris: Chez J. J. Dubochet et Compagnie, 55, Rue de Seine, 1844. First Edition. Hardcover. Good. TOPFFER, Rodolphe (1799-1846), CALAME, Alexandre (1810-1864). "Voyages en Zigzag, ou Excursions d'un Pensionnat en Vacances dans les Cantons Suisses et Sur le Revers Italien des Alpes." Paris: Chez J. J. Dubochet et Compagnie, 55, Rue de Seine, 1844. First edition. Complete. French language. Contemporary half pebble-grain cloth over purple stone-pattern marbled boards, four raised gilt bands forming five compartments on spine, gilt-titled in second compartment with black panels in rest, brown marbled endpapers, with green silk ribbon placemark. Quarto. 10 x 7 1/2 inches. [i]-viii [1]-542 [2]. 552 pp. 39 engraved plates after Topffer, 15 after Calame, engraved by Charles Francois Daubigny (1817-1878), Karl Girardet (1821-1893), Haubois, Himely, and Piaud. With over one hundred in-text woodblock illustrations after Topffer. Containing two frontispiece titles, preface from the editors, Aux Alpes et en Italie (1837), Saint-Gothard, Vallee de Misocco, Via Mala, Glaris et Schwitz (1838), Milan, Come, Splugen (1839), Chamounix, l'Oberland, le Righi (1840), Le Tour du Lac en Quatre Journees (1841), and Voyage a Venise (1842). "Topffer seems to me to stand on his own two feet and to be as completely original as any other talent has seemed to me." [Goethe] Topffer, the nineteenth-century Swiss Renaissance man and father of the graphic novel, ran a boys' boarding school in Geneva. At the time, it was customary for students to take advantage of vacation to tour the cantons, and Topffer went along on these trips guiding caravans of his pupils and sketching their adventures. They traveled on foot through Switzerland, Italy, and France, all of which he describes in this richly illustrated, charming work, which Carteret calls "very well printed and illustrated" as well as "very rare." Perret adds it is a "very classic and highly sought-after work" that is "rare in first edition (1844)." Calame, who adds 15 engraved landscapes to Topffer's profusion of illustration, "was indisputably the greatest Swiss landscaper." [Osteralder] Foxed or oxidized throughout, as often seen with this book, though generally not affecting the plates or illustrations. Wear, rubbing on boards. Good. References: Benezit, "Dictionary of Painters," p. 451. Brivois, Illustrated Bibliography of 19th Century Works, p. 405. Carteret III:586. Osteralder, "Dictionary of Illustrators I," p. 205. Perret 4296. Sander 687. Vicaire VII, 860.