London: H. S. Nichols, 1898. First edition in English. Two volumes, octavo. Both volumes with additional illustrated title, 16 plates, publisher's notice in volume one. Original publisher's elaborately pictorial blue cloth gilt, top edge gilt, remainder untrimmed. Edges and endpapers foxed, otherwise a spectacularly fresh and bright copy. Fine.

The first edition in English of Flaubert's Sentimental Education. Flaubert wrote about the work "I want to write the moral history of the men of my generation—or, more accurately, the history of their feelings," declared Gustave Flaubert, who envisioned "a book about love, about passion; but passion such as can exist nowadays—that is to say, inactive". A superior copy of an uncommon work in any condition. Fine (Item #8034)