DREYFOUS, Edouard, binder. DE FINOD, J., editor. ~ A Thousand Flashes of French Wit, Wisdom and Wickedness.
First edition. Sm. 8vo, binding by E. Dreyfous. signed on upper turn-in, of full red morocco, both sides with a rococo design of an elaborate gilt arbour with gilt tooled garlands, insects, a central urn, a chandelier and onlaid morocco flowers and cherubs, spine in compartments with raised bands with gilt rules in the style of branches with central floral tooling in each panel, the second with the title tooled in gilt, sumptuous turn-ins with trple gilt fillet, flower tooled border, dot border and one roll tool of elegant leaves resembling swans, pink watered silk doublures, all edges gilt.
The gilt hand tooling is quite elaborate and reflects the high quality of this luxury designer and retailer. Edouard Dreyfous was not only a designer and maker of Objects de Virtue including bookbindings, but he also sold fine art and antiques to a discerning and exacting clientele on both sides of the Atlantic and in Paris and had the Royal Warrant. Dreyfous was selling in London during the early 1900s.
A celebration of French intellectual thought from the wise to the wicked. The editor points out that he has mixed the quotations and aphorisms so noone can just head to the wicked and salacious and leave the important stuff alone.