Goncourt, Edmond de & Jules de. La Lorette. — Paris: E. Dentu, [1855] / 2nd edition, enriched with 10 original watercolours by Hippolyte Pauquet (unique copy)

Title-page (black and red): EDMOND ET JULES DE GONCOURT | — | LA | LORETTE | VIGNETTE | PAR GAVARNI | — | Troisième édition. | — | PRIX : 50 CENTIMES | — | PARIS | E. DENTU, LIBRAIRE-ÉDITEUR | Palais-Royal, Galerie vitrée, 13. ||

Description: Hardcover, 143 × 113 mm. Red morocco (Jansenist style), spine with five raised bands and gilt lettering; boards plain; board edges ruled in gilt; gilt dentelles on the doublures; all edges gilt. Front turn-ins and flyleaf in red morocco with gilt floret diaper; rear turn-ins and flyleaf in black morocco with gilt teardrop diaper; double endpapers in peacock marbled paper. Housed in a two-part red shagreen fitted ("cigar") case, with false bands and gilt lettering on spine. Binding by C. Hardy (Paris, rue Gît-le-Cœur, 15), binder to Léon Curmer; signed at the head of the verso of the second flyleaf. Printed in Paris by Imprimerie Simon Raçon et C^ie, rue d’Erfurth, 1.

Collation: 4to; 1³, 2–8⁴, unpaginated (31 leaves total) plus 11 plates (not included in collation): one etching by Paul Gavarni (French, 1804–1866), after leaf 2₁, within a gilt-ruled frame; and ten original watercolours by Hyppolyte Pauquet (French, 1797–1871), signed and dated 1854, 1855, and 1860, including a portrait of Gavarni, blind-stamped “Bristol Paper.” All text leaves printed within wide gilt-ruled frames. One binder’s blank at the front and two at the rear. No half-title.

Bound in:
(1) Autograph note signed (two leaves, one blank; 100 × 133 mm): “Mille et mille remerciemens — Vous êtes bien charmans, comme toujours. Gavarni.”
(2) Autograph manuscript by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt (one leaf, written on both sides; 90 × 132 mm), adding five unpublished lines to a chapter and recounting an anecdote relating to an unfinished text by Balzac.

Catalogue Raisonné: Vicaire III, 1027 reads:

— Edmond et Jules de Goncourt. La Lorette. Deuxième édition. Paris, E. Dentu, libraire, Palais-Royal, galerie d’Orléans, 13 (Impr. Simon Raçon et Cie), 1853, in-32, couv. impr.
1 f. (faux-titre ; au v°, même note que dans la précédente édition, et nom de l’imprimeur) ; 1 f. (titre) ; 1 f. (« À notre ami Gavarni ») ; et 29 ff. n. ch. Un exemplaire dont « chaque page a été habilement remontée en plus grand format et encadrée d’un large filet d’or », orné de 10 aquarelles de Pauquet, avec un autographe de l’un des Goncourt, en mar. rouge jans., doublé de mar. rouge, parsemé de roses à l’intérieur du premier plat, et de mar. noir, parsemé de larmes à l’intérieur du second plat (Hardy), a été adjugé 580 fr., Curmer. (Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. La Lorette. Second edition. Paris, E. Dentu, bookseller, Palais-Royal, galerie d’Orléans, 13 (Impr. Simon Raçon et Cie), 1853, in-32, publisher's wrappers. 1 leaf (half-title; on verso, same note as in the preceding edition, and name of the printer); 1 leaf (title); 1 leaf (“À notre ami Gavarni”); and 29 unnumbered leaves. A copy in which “each page has been skilfully remounted to a larger format and framed with a broad gilt rule,” adorned with 10 watercolours by Pauquet, with an autograph of one of the Goncourts, in red Jansenist morocco, lined with red morocco strewn with roses on the inside of the first board, and with black morocco strewn with tear-shaped ornaments on the inside of the second board (Hardy), was sold for 580 francs at the Curmer sale.

Provenance:
Léon Curmer (1801–1870), publisher and bibliophile; sale, 22 May 1874, lot 13.
Baron Melchior-Roger Portalis (1841–1912), art historian and collector.
Pierre-Jean Rouquette (French, 1833–1912), antiquarian bookseller, 85 Passage Choiseul, Paris.
Victor Déséglise (French, 1839–1916), bibliophile of Frapesle (Indre), member of the Société des Amis des Livres and the Cent Bibliophiles; his collections dispersed in Paris, 17–18 November 1896 (H. Leclerc and P. Cornuau, experts), Bibliothèque de Frapesle. Bookplate L.356d (monogram “J. B. V. D.”) lacking motto « Donne et pardonne », engraved by Stern.
Jean-Pierre Dutel (Paris), his bookplate.

Fact sheet from the seller (extract):

The small volume, priced at fifty centimes, met with immediate and remarkable success. As Étienne Eggis wrote in L’Éclair (no. 33, 21 August 1853): “The devil take me if I have ever seen so many ideas and such vivid observations brought together in so small a volume.”
In the press, La Lorette was described as one of those compact, stinging little in-32 volumes—so-called “physiologies”—that enjoyed considerable popularity in the early years of the Second Empire. Under its newspaper heading, Modern Leprosies, the book presented a sharply etched analysis, composed in a brisk, incisive style marked by deliberate harshness and caustic force. The relentless accumulation of raw observation produces an almost clinical effect, as if the reader were witnessing a surgical procedure in a hospital amphitheatre.
At the centre stands the courtesan—the first figure in a “shameful trinity” completed by the pimp and the ageing protector. Around her, further chapters unfold devoted to transient gentlemen, the maid, and even the family circle. A certain intensity of tone accompanies this subject matter; at moments the authors verge on cruelty. They show little sympathy for these morally compromised figures—women who would soon become fashionable, then be reclaimed by indulgent literary sentiment, forgiven and even sanctified for having feigned devotion day and night.
The dedication to Gavarni was more than ceremonial, for his influence permeates the work. He fittingly illustrated its opening page, depicting the heroine standing in a duelist’s pose, arrayed in a crinolined skirt edged with ruffles. Beneath the crisp folds of silk, however, the slender, serpentine outline of her body is unmistakable. The image encapsulates the philosophy of the Lorette—surface elegance overlaying calculated sensuality.
The book’s contemporary popularity was striking. Priced at 10 sous, Dentu reportedly sold more than 6,000 copies within a matter of days. Early printings have since become scarce. One distinguished copy belonged to the library of the publisher Curmer, who had the entire text reset in 12mo format and embellished each page with a gilt border. The artist Pauquet enriched the volume with ten original watercolours, including a portrait of Gavarni. The binding—red Jansenist morocco by Hardi [sic]—ranked among the binder’s finest achievements. The upper doublure, in red morocco, was richly gilt with a repeating floral motif; the final doublure, in black morocco, was adorned with a scattered pattern of tear-shaped ornaments.
This elaborately conceived copy—described as marking the “Alpha and Omega of Love”—was listed as no. 13 in the Curmer catalogue and purchased by Baron Portalis for 580 francs at the sale of 19 May 1874. It later resurfaced in the catalogue of the Rouquette bookshop.
(After Alidor Delzant, Les Goncourt, Paris: G. Charpentier et C^ie, 1889.)