Notre-Dame De Paris, 2 Volumes (Limited Editions Club)

HUGO, Victor. Notre-Dame de Paris. 2 vols. Translated by Jessie Haynes. Introduction by Andrew Lang. Woodcut illustrations by Frans Masereel. Paris: Limited Editions Club, 1930.

Large 8vo. Bound in red crushed morocco. Spine lettering and ruling in gilt. Upper edge gilt, other edges uncut. Ex-libris bookplate of Hans Rubens to front free endpaper of Vol. I. Ex-libris bookplate of Francis Clune to front board endpaper of both volumes. First Limited Editions Club edition. One of 1,500 numbered copies, printed by R. Coulouma, Master Printer in Argenteuil, on Velin d'Arches paper. Signed by Frans Masereel on the colophon of Vol. II. [Copy number to be confirmed from colophon.]

Notre-Dame de Paris was published in 1831, when Hugo was twenty-eight, and announced one of the great novelistic talents of the nineteenth century. Set in fifteenth-century Paris, it follows the beautiful dancer Esmeralda and the bell-ringer Quasimodo through the social strata of a city in which the cathedral itself functions as the dominant presence — a vast stone monument to a civilisation that is already beginning to crack. Hugo wrote the novel partly as a polemic for the preservation of Gothic architecture at a moment when Haussman-era demolition was threatening much of medieval Paris; the cathedral as a character, and the theme of the book as monument to what cannot otherwise be preserved, remain central to its power.

The Limited Editions Club, founded in New York by George Macy in 1929, produced this as its thirteenth publication, a significant commission for a press barely a year old. The illustrations were entrusted to Frans Masereel (1889–1972), the Belgian-born woodcut artist whose stark, expressionistic prints had already earned him a European reputation as one of the most powerful graphic artists of his generation. The twenty-two woodcuts (eleven being full-page) are among the most sympathetic illustrations the novel has ever received, their dramatic use of light and shadow entirely in keeping with Hugo's own aesthetic. The edition was printed on Velin d'Arches paper and issued in the original French title rather than the anglicised The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, a gesture of fidelity to the source that distinguishes it from most English-language editions. Macy later noted that many subscribers had felt cheated at receiving paperbound volumes and requested rebinding; the present set has been rebound in red crushed morocco with gilt ruling and lettering.

The bookplate of Francis Clune (1893–1971) to both volumes adds notable Australian provenance. Clune was one of the most widely read Australian writers of the mid-twentieth century and was a prominent figure in the Australian bookplate movement, having led the breakaway from the Australian Ex Libris Society to found the New South Wales Bookplate Club in 1932. That this copy of the Limited Editions Club's Notre-Dame carries his bookplate is a small but pleasing convergence of two serious collecting passions.

Very good. Leather smooth, supple, and well preserved. Some weathering to both volumes at spine head and foot and at corners. Bindings tight in both volumes. Mild toning and foxing throughout both volumes.

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Catalogue Number: HH000101