Paris: Albin Michel, N.d. [1904]

8vo, pp. 503. Original blue paper wrappers, lettered in black to both panels and spine. Leading and lower edges uncut. Original glassine wrappers. Text block browned, spine starting, but a very well preserved copy in the original glassine with a little wear and chipping to spine ends. French text.

First edition, INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR: 'A Monsieur Charles Martel, en toute sympathie d'art et d'idée Fernand Kolney'. WITH KOLNEY'S CARTE DE VISITE, INSCRIBED BY THE BOOK'S DEDICATEE LAURENT TALIHADE -- KOLNEY'S BROTHER-IN-LAW -- TIPPED IN: 'avec les meillures complimentes de son beau-frère Laurent Tailhade'.

Kolney's roman à clef, set in the literary salons of fin de siécle Paris, and featuring many of the author's contemporaries, some of whom reached for lawyers. The book is dedicated to Kolney's brother-in-law (and fellow libertarian) Laurent Talihade, who has inscribed one of Kolney's cartes de visite, tipped in here.

From the library of the erotica historiographer, bibliomaniac and origami expert Gershon Legman, whose characteristic pencilled cataloguing notes are to be found on the rear endpaper, and who is probably responsible for the typed key to the novel's cast of characters laid in beneath the front wrapper, identifying Kolney's targets, among them Robert de Montesquieu, Jean Lorrain, Octave Mirbeau, Jean Jaurès and Léon Bloy. The author appears as 'Rousachel'.