[Arsenic Collection] Two Tales of Paris At the Beginning of Modernization: d'Isle - La Promenade aux Champs-Élysées suivie de Malice et Bonté (1854)

d’Isle, René. La Promenade aux Champs-Élysées suivie de Malice et Bonté. Limoges & Paris: Martial Ardant Frères, 1854. 

(125 x 81 mm) 94 pp. and Table des matières with black and white engraved frontispiece. Bound by Janvier in Paris. Pale green cardboard binding (cartonnage romantique papier), with color illustration onlay on front cover and gilt decoration embossed on both front and back with gilt gauffers. Minor bumping to endbands and corners. Currently housed in removable mylar jacket for safety & conservation. Overall VERY GOOD condition.

ABOUT THE TEXT— 

From the series ‘Bibliothèque religieuse, morale et littéraire, pour l’enfance et la jeunesse’

Two short tales of set in Paris just as Hausmannization ushered the cityscape from the remnants of the Medieval town into the modern city of wide boulevards and parks that it is today. The stories are focused on two sets of Parisians, with short descriptions of various notable places around the city.

ABOUT THE PUBLISHER— Making Beautiful Books Available To All 

Martial Ardant began printing books for the youth in Limoges in 1807, inheriting a local printing business from his wife. He had four children, one of whom was Eugene Ardant. The printing business was passed to Eugene in 1837. In his application for a lithographic patent he applied to “make notable improvements to the number of works [they they had published], for the most part intended for the most numerous and the least fortunate of society.” His other three brothers joined within several decades and the Martial Ardant Frères— named after their father— grew in reputation and production ability. They had two mechanical and 11 or 12 hand pressed, along with a cardboard factory (for their beautiful cartonnages romantiques), a paper factory, and a stereotyping workshop. Their production employed more than 20 independent binders in Limoges.

ABOUT THE BINDING— Beautiful but Deadly

The emerald green pigment of on the binding of this book is due to the use of copper acetoarsenite— the cloth contains arsenic. Arsenic was used as a colouring agent for book bindings particularly between the 1840s to the 1860s. Often embellished with gold and blind stamping, as with this example, these bindings appear shiny or coated.