662. Mérimée (Prosper) Carmen, first edition in book form , half-title with publisher’s advertisements on verso, lightly browned, attractive later dark red half straight-grain morocco by René Aussourd, spine in compartments, richly gilt, very slightly rubbed, 8vo, Paris, Michel Lévy Frères, 1846.
est. £1500 – £2000
Based on a true story recounted to Merimée by the future Empress Eugénie de Montijo, the work was not an immediate success. It took Bizet’s opera of 1875, with libretto by Henry Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy to propel it to its status as one of the most important works in the 19th century French canon.
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