160 pages in French. Numerous vignettes, and two full-page engraved illustrations. Originalred silk place-keeper. Original decoratively illustrated - signed Silbermann - light yellow wrappers bound in. Mild and occasional foxing. Some edges untrimmed. Contemporary marbled endpapers. Contemporary pencil inscription on verso of front free endpaper. 72 x 96 mm. Contemporary half calf with marbled boards; spine in five compartments with raised bands, decorative gilt hand-tooled fleurons and red morocco titling piece with gilt title. Slightly rubbed at corners, edges and along hinges. Not in Bondy, nor Spielmann, nor Welsh. OCLC, 780327293. WorldCat locates one copy worldwide (Bibliothèque Nationale de France). The Sélam is a bouquet of allegorical flowers which odalisques manage to pass to their lovers with the help of an old woman, or by tossing them across the trellis of their pavilions. Each flower is a phrase; the cinder says: I burn for you; and so on. Gautier led to an attribution for the introduction of the word sélam - a corruption of salaam, the standard Arabic word of greeting - into European usage to Byron. But the language of flowers was perceived by the English as a French rather than an oriental invention.