Soeur Anne ou Les Sept Histories (multicolored cartonnage issue)

Paris: Marcilly, 1830. Multicolored set of this linked collection of moral fables, in which a group of young sisters are dispatched on individual yearlong quests by a “Terrible Fairy” after their father, deranged by grief after the apparent death of their mother, abandons them. Each sister faces a landscape of Gothic perils that must be overcome through strength of character: in the end, the family is miraculously reunited, and the girls are rewarded for their virtue. The six titles in the series are Un Père et ses Sept Enfants, Ma Soeur Anne, Ma Soeur Lucy, Ma Soeur Mathilde, Mes Soeurs Sophie et Caroline, and Mes Soeurs Betzi et Rose. Located near the (truncated) Sorbonne in the rue St. Jacques, the historic center of printing in Paris, luxury stationer Marcilly specialized in decorative almanacs and miniature cartonnage gift books like these. This issue of Soeur Anne ou Les Sept Histoires features six brightly colored cartonnage bindings, and is housed in the publisher’s box. Text in French. OCLC locates four copies worldwide, none in the United States. See Malavielle, Relieures et cartonnages d’éditeur en France au XIXe siècle (plate 2). A near-fine set, doubly housed in the original box and a custom clamshell. Six 32mo volumes, measuring 4.5 x 3 inches: 32 pages each. Original variously colored paper boards (pink, green, yellow, lavender, buff, and blue) with embossed gilt border to each front board and central steel-engraved vignette, steel-engraved frontispiece in each volume. Three previous owner inscriptions to front free endpaper of each volume. Housed in lightly shelfworn publisher’s card box framed in gilt embossed paper, lid with engraved pictorial onlay framed by green and gilt embossed frame, box divided into two compartments lined in pink paper with frayed pink silk lifting ribbons. Housed in a custom clamshell box. (Inventory #: 1004061)