Les Prisons de Paris | Alhoy & Lurine | First Illustrated Edition 1846

An impressive French book from 1846 about the history and daily life within the famous prisons of Paris. Les Prisons de Paris. Histoire, Types, Moeurs, Mystères was written by Maurice Alhoy and Louis Lurine and published by Gustave Havard in Paris.

This original illustrated edition takes the reader through fourteen historical prisons and institutions, including the Conciergerie, La Force, Saint-Lazare, Sainte-Pélagie, Bicêtre, Le Temple and the Bastille. Historical events are interspersed with stories about prisoners, customs and life behind the walls of nineteenth-century Paris.

The book is particularly richly illustrated. In addition to numerous smaller engravings in the text, the edition contains large illustrations based on the work of several famous French artists from the Romantic period, including Bertall, Jules David, Eustache-Lorsay and Édouard de Beaumont.

The binding is also characteristic of the period, executed in half-leather with marbled boards and endpapers. The leather spine is decorated with gilded title letters and decorative gilded ornaments. There is also an old French bookbinding set label at the front.

A large and particularly fine-looking preserved historical book that is interesting both because of its subject and because of the rich nineteenth-century book illustration.

Specifications

• Title: Les Prisons de Paris. Histoire, Types, Moeurs, Mystères
• Authors: Maurice Alhoy and Louis Lurine
• Publisher: Gustave Havard
• Place of publication: Paris, France
• Year: 1846
• First edition, first printing of the illustrated edition
• Language: French
• Size: approx. 27 × 17.5 cm
• Thickness: approx. 4 cm
• Binding: half-leather binding with marbled boards
• Marbled endpapers
• Richly illustrated with engravings in and outside the text
• Old French bookbinding set label on the inside
• Sturdy binding and well-secured text block
• Clear foxing and age-related discoloration throughout the book
• Signs of use and wear to the leather, edges and corners consistent with age
• Small localized old trace of bookworm/insect damage at the top