Folio Archives 266: Mademoiselle de Maupin by Théophile Gautier 1948

Mademoiselle de Maupin by Théophile Gautier 1948

The 1948 Folio Society prospectus states that “This is a great classic of the French Romantic period ……..Members are warned, however, that this is not a story for puritans or children, in this unexpurgated form”.

In Folio 21 Charles Ede writes that “The form of this book was dictated by the somewhat alarming financial situation existing at the time. The text was reproduced by offset, in a reduced size from the edition published by the Golden Cockerel Press, and the resulting bastard format has been found useful on a number of subsequent occasions, not least for the Shakespeare series. The pencil drawings should have been engravings, but we just could not afford to pay for the additional work.

It is an extraordinarily advanced story and style for the period. Written in 1835 it covers mistresses, bordellos, adultery, cross-dressing, lesbianism, lust, sexuality and is generally just risqué, while being tempered by the typical excessive verbosity of early 19th. century literature. As a result, the reader can skip long sections, or even complete chapters, of philosophy or description between the juicy bits (which are still quite mild by 21st. century standards).

The book is really a romantic comedy with a male and female lead telling their stories in the first person as they romp through Parisian society, making fun of the social and sexual mores of the day.

The 285 page book comes without a slipcase (as did all FS books of this era), but the lovely cream cloth binding that is blocked on the cover with the title within a blue and gold cartouche, is wrapped in a rather plain (and in my book’s case rather tatty) red dustjacket. The book measures 22.7x17.4cm. and contains eight pencil illustrations by Mark Severin. The translation from the French was done by R. and E. Powys Mathers. There is no introduction and the endpapers are plain white.

















































An index of the other illustrated reviews in the "Folio Archives" series can be viewed here.

>1 wcarter:

It may be of interest to note that Folio's edition does not include the author's preface to the French original. The text is considered, among other aspects, as an important contribution to the critique of art. Gautier's work in English is freely available from:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/48893/48893-h/48893-h.htm

>2 drasvola:
Thank you, very interesting.

Thank you, love the golden age of FS when they printed belles lettres with risqué drawings.