24 volumes. Photogravure frontispieces and plates in two states, one on Japanese vellum and one on India paper mounted, one of the frontispieces hand-colored. (8vo) 21.7x14 cm. (8½x5½") original full turquoise morocco, covers decoratively tooled in gilt with an outer border of fleurs-de-lys between two double gilt fillet borders and with a central onlaid red morocco fleur-de-lys, spines decoratively tooled and lettered in gilt in six compartments, turn-ins decoratively tooled in gilt with fleurs-de-lys, brown levant morocco doublures also decoratively tooled in gilt with fleurs-de-lys, top edges gilt, others uncut. One of 300 numbered sets for sale in America.
Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), French poet, novelist, critic, and journalist, "was an admirer of Hugo, and played a prominent role in the Romantic movement of the 1830s (his Histoire du romantisme appeared in 1874). He was closely associated with the doctrine of l'art pour l'art ('art for art's sake'), expounded in the preface to his novel Mademoiselle de Maupin (1835). His best-known collection of poems is Émaux et camées (1852), which exercised considerable influence on the Parnassians. He had a long career in journalism, and wrote widely on travel, art, ballet, and the theatre" (The Oxford Companion to English Literature).