Title: LE PROFESSEUR.
Publisher: Paris. Librairie de L. Hachette et Cie. Rue Pierr-Sarrazin, No. 14.
Publication Date: 1858
Binding: Soft cover
Book Condition: Very Good
Edition: 1st Edition
FIRST FRENCH EDITION. Half-title & title pages, followed by 299 printed pages. Page edges untrimmed. Sporadic light foxing. Some corners, predominantly at the beginning and end of the book, very slightly creased. 12.5 x 18.5 cm. ORIGINAL PRINTED WRAPPERS. Spine very slightly creased & with short part split near bottom front (still completely intact on the inner joint). Upper cover with black lettering, very lightly evenly toned, some tiny black spots, very slightly worn corners, a tiny tear above the "P" in Professeur, light creasing towards the bottom, and some marginal & extremely short tears on the leading edge- all peripheral faults). Back cover with printed publisher's advert (top corner torn with historic paper repair on verso, some old, light stains, some mild creases and very light wear to the edges). Although other works by the Brontës had appeared before in French, this was the first appearance of the first novel of Charlotte Bronte. First editions of Charlotte Bronte in their original wrappers and in such original condition are seldom found in any language- these delicate editions in wrappers are certainly much rarer than cloth or leather bound examples. The FIRST English edition was published the year before by Smith, Elder, & Co, London and then by Harper and Brothers, New York also in 1857. After the devastating commercial failure of the Brontës's Poems (only two copies sold), Charlotte began circulating the manuscript of her slim first novel, The Professor, a roman-o-clef based on her experiences in Brussels, where she studied as a language student, in 1842, at Constantin Héger's school for girls. In the novel William Crimsworth, an Englishman, becomes a teacher in Brussels and falls in love with a fellow teacher. Crimsworth is based on Héger, to whom Brontë was devoted. In her novel Villette (1853), she used plot material from The Professor and expanded the character of Crimsworth into that of Paul Emanuel. It is well possible that Henriette Loreau began translating Le Professeur in 1857, the year in which it was first published, posthumously. Loreau's Le Professeur was first published in 1858, by Hachette et Cie, from Paris (299 pp.). The last new edition so far of her translation dates from 2016! That has been 158 years in print-one the longest running literary translations. Henriette Loreau (1815- 83) also translated several Dickens novels and Mayne Reid for Hachette and Mrs. Gaskell's Ruth, among other works. Later French editions of Le Professeur followed in 1864 and 1867 "Traduit avec l'autorisation de l'éditeur". WorldCat locates only two UK copies (British Library and University of Oxford). Seller Inventory # 5080