ERAGNY PRESS. FLAUBERT, Gustave. ~ La Legende de Saint Julien L'Hospitalier.
Wood engraved frontispiece, honeysuckle border and initials designed by Lucien Pissarro and engraved by Lucien and Esther Pissarro. One of 226 copies. Printed in Vale type on Arnold's handmade paper. 12mo., in a very handsome binding by Zaehnsdorf of full tan morocco, elaborately tooled in gilt with flower buds and hearts on both sides and spine, double gilt fillets on each side and dotted lines, turn-ins with double gilt fillets, dotted border and tooth roll tool with floral tooling and triple dots, top edge gilt, silk doublures.
The frontispiece is a charming, tranquil image of a doe in the forest with a pair of rabbits in the foreground as a gentle pastoral contrast to what Alice Beckwith calls “the brutal assaults on nature depcited in Gustave Flaubert’s riveting story”. With attention to modern psychology, Flaubert postulates the circumstances which caused Julian to murder his parents and then seek forgiveness in a life of penitence and service”...which ends in his recognition that the lowly deserve the care of the mighty. This message encouraged the Pissarros to give copies of the book to three friends who were very active in the anarchist press: CGeorges Lecomte, Emile Vehaeren and Benjamin Guinaudeau.