About the cover:
Dark red marocco leather, 5 bands, wide hand-gilt frame with several lines blind and gold-stamped on front and back cover with delicate rosettes, spine design based on cover frame, hand-gilt spine title in the second panel, standing and inside edge gilding, gilt head edge, hand-stitched endpapers, black silk endpapers, simple slipcase edged with leather, marbled paper cover.
About the content:
Henri Barbusse: L'enfer
With 24 original etchings by Edouard Chimot.
First illustrated edition. Edition of 442 copies. Ex. No. 160 of 355 on Vélin d'Arches, Les Grands Livres du XXe Siècle, Paris, 1921 A thirty-year-old man, bored with life, finds a job at a Parisian bank. He lives in a guest house and, in the darkness of his room, sees a crack in the wall through which he can observe a wide variety of people...
This first novel by Barbusse is characterised by decadence and eroticism, an attack on society and its institutions.
About the artist: Three generations of the Gruel family ran successfully the Paris bookbinding workshop founded by Isidore Deforge in 1811. In 1825, Deforges handed the workshop over to his son-in-law Pierre-Paul Gruel, who was an engraver by trade but quickly became familiar with bookbinding. When Pierre-Paul Gruel died in 1846, his widow Catherine continued to manage the workshop. From 1850 on, she ran the business with her second husband Jean Engelmann, a renowned lithographer. Catherine’s and Pierre-Paul’s son Léon Gruel, born 1841, took over in 1875. Initially, he ran the workshop together with his step-brother Edmond Engelmann until Edmond’s death in 1892 left him as the sole owner.
Léon was well-educated, and thanks to his expertise and intelligence, the workshop became the best address for fine bindings in Paris. In 1902, shortly after the death of his wife, the ailing Léon moved to Southern France and left the business to his son Paul, born in 1864. Paul ran the well-established and well-known bookbindery until his death in 1954. Paul Gruel became a Knight of the League of Honour in 1928.
