CHATEAUBRIAND François-René Atala – René

Carteret, I, 161; Talvart 2-B Vicaire, II, 279-280. Cohen, 229, Chateaubriand, Le Voyageur et l’homme politique, 1969, Bibliothèque nationale, n°68; Escoffier, le Mouvement romantique, 155. 

First collective edition of these two novels, which mark the beginning of the Romantic era.

It is decorated with 6 figures engraved by Saint-Aubin and Choffard after drawings by Garnier.

After being published separately five times in 1801, Atala took its rightful place in the Génie du Christianisme alongside René (1802). Successive editions will give rise to numerous revisions by the author until the present edition, which gives the definitive text : «J’ai passé quatre ans à revoir cet épisode, mais aussi il est tel qu’il doit rester. C’est la seule Atala que je reconnoîtrai à l’avenir » (Préface). The preface in which Chateaubriand explains his work and his reaction to the criticism of these two novels is in first edition.

In 1791, Châteaubriand travelled to America, which inspired two literary works. The first was Atala, followed by Voyage en Amérique, published in 1828, which retraces his journey. Châteaubriand was fascinated by the American landscape, with its luxuriant, wild and transcendent nature. As an amateur botanist, he did not forget to incorporate this nature into Atala, which combines his impressions of his journey with a tragic love story between Atala and Chactas.

A presentation copy to an amateur botanist.

Chateaubriand’s interest in botany is well known. It is apparent not only in his works but also in his daily life when he tended the garden at his property in the Vallée-aux-Loups.

Although little is known about Madame Chaussée, it is certain that she was an amateur botanist in Le Havre. She was behind the creation of a unique rose in the 1820s. For a time, she was dispossessed of her creation in favour of Monsieur Caron, caretaker of the garden at Rouen town hall (Singer, Max, Dictionnaire des roses, 1885, p.335).

Although there are no historical documents linking Chateaubriand to Madame Chausée, we cannot ignore the fact that their lives coincided. Botany was not the only thing that linked them. They also frequented the same places. It was in Le Havre that the author disembarked after his stay in America, and he devoted several passages to the town in his Mémoires d’Outre-tombe (Livre VII).

Provenance: From the very fine collection of Doctor Armand Ripault (bookplate with the motto “d’espérer servira”), his auction catalogue 24-26 January 1924 (first part, no. 239); André Cade (bookplate): Professor of general pathology and therapeutics at the Faculty of Medicine in Lyon. – Correspondent at the Académie de médecine and member of the Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Lyon.