Le Puits de Sainte Claire.

FRANCE, Anatole.

$950.00

Item Number: 82311

Paris: Calmann Levy, 1895.

First edition of this novel by the Nobel Prize-winning French writer regarding tales based on Italian historical characters and events. Octavo, original printed wrappers and glassine wrapper, Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the half-title page, “Fernand Calmettes son vieil ami Anatole France.” The recipient, Fernand Calmettes was a writer and editor and contemporary of the author. Housed in a chemise and half morocco slipcase. Books signed and inscribed Anatole France are uncommon.

Anatole France was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered the ideal French man of letters. He was a member of the Académie française, and won the 1921 Nobel Prize in Literature "in recognition of his brilliant literary achievements, characterized as they are by a nobility of style, a profound human sympathy, grace, and a true Gallic temperament". France is also widely believed to be the model for narrator Marcel's literary idol Bergotte in Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.