Details
[DURAS, Claire de Kersaint, Duchess de (1778-1828)]. Ourika. Paris: Imprimerie royale, [1824]. 8° (165 x 98mm), printed on papier vélin. Contemporary blue morocco gilt, gilt spine, gilt turn-ins, g.e., by Trautz-Bauzonnet.
DURAS. Ourika, translated into English with an introduction by John Fowles. Austin: W.Thomas Taylor, 1977. 4°, blue morocco-backed boards. One of 500 copies printed at the Bird & Bull Press, signed and dated by Fowles.
FIRST EDITION, and one of only about 25 copies printed for private distribution. Mme Duras hosted one of the most brilliant literary salons of the Restoration, and here, in her first novel, she deals with the inequality of race. Ourika is a young black woman, raised in a cultivated French household, who falls in love with a nobleman; because of her race, her love is unrequited, and she dies in a nunnery. The book was remarkably successful, reprinted in Paris the same year and again several times throughout the 19th century, including two London editions. FINE COPIES of both the first edition and the 1977 private press edition. (2)
DURAS. Ourika, translated into English with an introduction by John Fowles. Austin: W.Thomas Taylor, 1977. 4°, blue morocco-backed boards. One of 500 copies printed at the Bird & Bull Press, signed and dated by Fowles.
FIRST EDITION, and one of only about 25 copies printed for private distribution. Mme Duras hosted one of the most brilliant literary salons of the Restoration, and here, in her first novel, she deals with the inequality of race. Ourika is a young black woman, raised in a cultivated French household, who falls in love with a nobleman; because of her race, her love is unrequited, and she dies in a nunnery. The book was remarkably successful, reprinted in Paris the same year and again several times throughout the 19th century, including two London editions. FINE COPIES of both the first edition and the 1977 private press edition. (2)