THEOPHILE GAUTIER (1811-1872) Voyage en Russie Paris, Charpentier Libraire-Éditeur, 1867.

in French First edition. A richly evocative account of Gautier’s travels in Russia, capturing a dreamlike vision of the country’s landscapes and cultural heritage. 2 volumes, In-8, bound, 400p.+table et 293p.+table, bound in modern half red basane, covers dated 1866 not preserved. Freckles, spotting. Traces of rubbing, small tears in spine of Volume I. Jules Pierre Théophile Gautier French poet, novelist and art critic. He made two trips to Russia, the first during the winter of 1858/1859 to prepare the publication of a work on the Art Treasures of Ancient and Modern Russia, and the second during the summer of 1861, with his eldest son Charles-Marie Théophile, known as Toto, and a family friend. It was the writer's longest stay abroad. The journalist-poet, who stayed in St Petersburg and Moscow at the beginning of the reign of Alexander II, was not interested in the country's politics or social life; he sought out another, mythical Russia, from which emerges a dizzying amalgam of vaporous tableaux, the intoxication of fleeting visions, the bewitchment of the icy hues of a misty infinity.