The Life and Times of Henry Monnier 1799-1877

Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1950. A near Fine unmarked copy which has a small name to front endpaper with VG dustjacket which is not price clipped. xiv + 253 pages. 19 illustrations. Versatile, gregarious Henry Monnier was so typical of the 19th century Paris of which he was a quasi-satirical exponent that this colourful biography takes the reader on delightful excursions into the mores of French life and the changing modes of thought during the Restoration, the July Monarchy, and the Second Empire. As lithographer and illustrator second only to Daumier among the satiric artists, he created that epitome of the bourgeois type, Monsieur Joseph Prudhomme, the French Babbitt. Monnier's realistic techniques as monologuist and character actor foreshadowed the later work of Antoine and the Théâtre Libre. As a writer he produced lifelike scenes of manners that influenced Balzac and the Realists, and possibly Flaubert. The diversity of his talents and variety of his friendships included Balzac, who admired him greatly, Mérimée, Eugène Sue, George Cruikshank, Gavarni, Dumas, Latouche. **** NOT EX LIB **** 24. First Edition. Hard Cover. Near Fine/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.