BARBARA (Charles). L'Assassinat du Pont-Rouge. Paris, Victor Lecou, E. Blanchard, Michel Lévy, 1855. In-16, red half-maroquin, spine decorated with cold caissons, speckled edges, cover and spine (Period binding). An extremely rare first edition. L'Assassinat du Pont-Rouge was the first successful novel by Charles Barbara (1817-1886), "the friend of Baudelaire, Champfleury, Nadar and Murger" (Mesplède). First published as a serial in the Revue de Paris in 1855, it was published the same year in the Collection Hetzel et Lecou; printed in Brussels, the volume was marked Édition spéciale pour la France, interdit pour l'étranger. This first edition is extremely rare; it is missing from the BnF, which only has the Bibliothèque des chemins de fer edition of 1859 (the only one cited by Mesplède) and the reprint of 1860. This work can be considered the first true French detective novel, following in the footsteps of Edgar Poe - and well before the publication of Émile Gaboriau's L'Affaire Lerouge (1866) and Monsieur Lecoq (1869). " C. Barbara is in fact the inventor of the genre", writes Yves Olivier-Martin, and L'Assassinat du Pont-Rouge, "the first mystery story, with a detective character and an intimate drama". The novel is also unusual in that it quotes in full a sonnet by Baudelaire (pp. 86-87): "Que diras-tu ce soir, pauvre âme solitaire", the future piece XXXVII of Les Fleurs du Mal, published two years later, in 1857. Baudelaire, a close friend of Barbara's and, like him, an emulator of Poe, is not mentioned by name, but is described as "a poet in whom a decided aptitude for the most arduous speculations did not exclude a warm, colourful poetry, essentially original and human" (p. 82). A precious copy from Charles Asselineau (1821-1874), Baudelaire's faithful friend, with this autograph letter signed by the author: to Charles Asselineau his friend Ch. Barbara. A very fine copy, complete with cover. This is the only copy of this book cited by Vicaire. From the Asselineau (1875, n°51) and Count de Lanjuinais libraries (bookplate). Vicaire, I, 286 (quoted copy) - Mesplède, I, 157 - Y. Olivier-Martin, "Origines secrètes du roman policier français", Europe, n°571-572, 1976, pp. 144-149.