The Lys in the valley - Balzac - illustrated by Maurice Berty 1/150 1947

Description (ch)

• Read and admired throughout Europe, Balzac heavily influenced the writers of his time and the following century.

Gustave Flaubert's novel Sentimental Education is directly inspired by The Lily of the Valley, and Madame Bovary by A Woman of Thirty.

The principle of recurring characters evolving and transforming within a vast novel cycle particularly inspired Émile Zola, Guy de Maupassant, and Marcel Proust.

• "The Princesse de Clèves of Romanticism," according to Paul Morand, "a history of the Hundred Days, seen from a Loire château," according to Alain

The Lily is primarily the tale of a sentimental education; a story of frustrated love, but also a story of the absence of love.

It is the story of a young man who, in a long letter, confesses to his fiancée all the reasons that led him to previously adore a married woman, older than him, who never gave in to him. Following this reading, the young girl, understanding that he still loves her despite the other woman's death, and not feeling capable of competing with the memory of that love, leaves him.

Many readers, having more or less shared a similar experience during their youth, can indeed find themselves in this story which touches upon the universal. And yet, this work probably presents the most autobiographical transposed narrative that the author ever wrote.

A novel written under the July Monarchy by an author who advocates for a reform of the aristocracy while defending it, The Lily of the Valley offers a glimpse of the criticism of the Restoration in a scene from private life.

• Maurice Berty is a French illustrator and painter - In 1924, Maurice Berty's drawings appeared in La Semaine de Suzette

Berty became very present in La Semaine de Suzette, illustrating the titles of recurring sections, illustrated stories, and short stories.

Awarded by the Academy of Fine Arts in 1942, he created advertising drawings for Le Bon Marché and collaborated actively with Delagrave editions. He illustrated numerous French and foreign authors: Choderlos de Laclos, Lamartine, Dickens, Balzac, Chateaubriand, Andersen.

https://obvil.sorbonne-universite.fr/corpus/critique/champfleury_balzac-methode

https://www.centredelagravure.be/contributor/atelier-georges-leblanc/

http://www.lysdanslavallee.fr/fr/article/introduction-au-lys-dans-la-vallee

Condition

Very beautiful work with minimal signs of use

• slight rubbing on the back of the slipcase
• slight edge wear

• Interior is fresh