MADAME DE TREYMES

1907. Wenzell, A. B.. With Illustrations. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907. Original greyish-brown cloth decorated in gilt.

First Edition of this novella, illustrated with two color plates by Alonzo Kimball. As Fanny Frisbie [the protagonist] in her New York days, she had been lively, dashing, and free-spirited. Now, married to a dissolute French nobleman and hemmed in by the invincible forces of the Faubourg aristocracy, she has become a very different person... If there is a gain in refinement, there is a loss in resilience and spontaneity... Edith Wharton seems to have been suggesting that the psychic imprisonment of women could occur anywhere and even under the most gracious of conditions [Lewis]. This is a close-to-fine copy, very slightly rubbed at the corners; a few leaves were roughly opened. Garrison A13.I.a, binding A ("priority undetermined"). Provenance: the front endpaper bears the signature of "Beatrice Olga Simpson | Briarcliff | New York | 1917": a Californian who lived in three centuries (1899-2001), she attended the Briarcliff School in NY and later (1924) became Mrs. Henry Bishop Grandin.