Contes de Toutes les Couleurs: Les Poissons Rouges, Le Singe Vert, Le Nain Jaune, La Souris Grise, Le Lapin Blanc, L’Oiseau Bleu (six volumes)
Paris: Marcilly, circa 1825. Six twelvemo volumes, measuring 4.5 x 3 inches: 32. Original glazed white paper boards, upper boards elaborately stamped in gilt and titled in blue with hand-colored pictorial onlays. Hand-colored, tissue-guarded frontispiece in each volume. Occasional faint foxing to text. Housed in lightly shelfworn publisher’s card box framed in gilt embossed paper, lid with hand-colored pictorial onlay (duplicating the frontispiece of La Souris Grise) framed by green and gilt ruled frame, box divided into two compartments lined in pink paper with white silk lifting ribbons. Housed in a custom clamshell box.
Complete set of six illustrated tales for young readers, each featuring a different color in the title: The Red Fish (or goldfish, in English parlance), The Green Monkey, The Yellow Dwarf, The Grey Mouse, The White Rabbit, and The Bluebird. These highly decorative pocket storybooks were a specialty of publisher Marcilly, a luxury stationer known for miniature almanacs and gift books. Text in French; publisher’s imprint located in Les Poissons Rouges. OCLC locates four examples, all in France. A bright fine set, doubly housed in the original publisher’s box and a custom clamshell.
Price: $3,250.00