Folio. Two works in 2 volumes combined in a decorated slipcase, original decorated gilt and marbled calf binding by Charles Meunier for the editor, marbled end papers, French text within gilt borders, Volume I: La Maison sur le Nil: 27 pp., illustrated in 10 colour plates in and hors text, watercolours by Paul Gervais, also containing the black china ink decomposition of all the illustrations, +[4 advertising the forthcoming publication of the book at rear] / Volume II: Ariane: 28 pp., 10 colour plates in and hors text, watercolours by Georges Rochegrosse, also containing the black china ink decomposition of all the illustrations, +[4 advertising the forthcoming publication of the book at rear]. The set is of limited edition of 140 copies, numbers 16-140 were printed on beautiful white velum paper, of which this set is No: 89, bookplate of Leon Michel verso front endpapers, set in mint condition. Printed for Charles Meunier, Maison du Livre, Paris, 1904.

Synopsis

Pierre Félix Louis (1870-1925), also known as Pierre Louÿs, was a French poet and author. His pen names were Pierre Louis, Chrysis, Peter Lewys and Pibrac. He founded a literary review, La Conque in 1891, where works not only by Parnassian and symbolist literary role models were published, such as Mallarmé, Moréas, Leconte de Lisle or Verlaine, but also writings by young and still unknown poets such as Valéry, André Gide and Louÿs himself.
His first, small collection of poems, Astarté, appeared in 1891 in l’Art indépendent, followed by “Chrysis ou la cérémonie matinale” in 1893; Poésies de Méléagre, translated in 1893, “Lêda ou la louange des bienheureux ténèbres” in 1893, “La maison sur le Nil ou les Apparences de la Vertu” in 1894, “Scènes de la vie des courtisanes de Lucien de Samosate”, translated in 1894, and the same year “Les Chansons de Bilitis” which was his best-known work and a literary hoax. Effectively, Louÿs passed his own poems off as those of a contemporary of the Greek Sappho (died ca. 570 BCE).