Stefan Zweig

Beautiful stated first edition of Zweig's biography of Marie Antoinette in a beautiful Cosway-style binding.

• Stefan Zweig (Austrian).
• London: Cassell and Company, 1933.
• Bound in a beautiful Cosway-style binding by Bayntun Rivière in full pink morocco leather that features a fine hand-painted miniature portrait of Marie Antoinette on ivory under glass inlaid to the front cover that measures approximately 5.5 inches, spine with raised bands with elaborate gilt decorations, and titling, both the front and rear covers are double gilt ruled with a fleur-de-lys decorative motif, elaborate gilt dentelles, floral gilt decorated pink morocco doublures and white water-silk endpapers, all edges gilt.
• Housed in a functional cloth slipcase.

Cosway bindings (named for renowned 19th-century English miniaturist Richard Cosway) were first commissioned in the early 1900s by J.H. Stonehouse, managing director of London booksellers Sotheran & Company, from the famous Rivière bindery, who employed Miss C.B. Currie to faithfully imitate Cosway's detailed watercolor style of portraiture. These delicate miniature paintings, often on ivory, were set into the covers or doublures of richly tooled bindings and protected by a thin pane of glass. Cosway bindings executed by other than the original collaborators (Stonehouse, Sotheran, Rivière and Currie) are designated as "Cosway-style" bindings.

From the publisher, “Stefan Zweig based his biography of Marie Antoinette, who became the Queen of France at the age of fifteen, on the correspondence between her and her mother, and her great love the Count Axel von Fersen. Zweig analyzes the chemistry of a woman's soul from her intimate pleasures to her public suffering as a Queen under the weight of misfortune and history. Zweig describes Marie Antoinette in the King's bedroom, in the enchanted and extravagant world of the Trianon, and with her children. And in his account of 'The Revolution', he describes her resolve during the failed escape to Varennes, her imprisonment in the Conciergerie and her final tragic destiny under the guillotine. Zweig's account has been the definitive biography of Marie Antoinette since its publication."