BLOY (Léon). Le Désespéré. Paris, Tresse & Stock, 1887. In-12, red morocco, spine decorated with gilt fleurons, fillets on the edges, gilt inner lace, gilt head, untrimmed, cover and spine, chemise and slipcase sheathed in the same morocco (C. de Séguier). First printed edition of Léon Bloy's first novel, disowned by its author in favour of Alphonse Soirat's edition and shelved until 1893. Its publisher, Pierre-Victor Stock, had demanded the removal of a passage containing a violent attack on Francis Magnard, the editor of Le Figaro, which Léon Bloy intransigently refused. Having obtained from Alphonse Soirat the printing of an edition in accordance with his manuscript, he opposed the sale of the Stock edition. But as the Soirat edition did not give rise to any legal proceedings, Pierre-Victor Stock decided to put his edition of Le Désespéré on sale, but not without amending the passage directed against Magnard by having the relevant section cardboard-bound (pp. 397-420). Largely autobiographical, Le Désespéré transposes into fiction the drama between Bloy and Anne-Marie Roulé, a relationship in which sensuality is gradually erased by mysticism. One of 10 copies on hollande, the only and very rare large paper, all the more sought-after as the Soirat edition was only printed on ordinary paper. A rare feature, it is complete with the original state of the incriminated quire (signature 23), before the cardboard, as well as the cardboard state (sign. **), both printed on hollande. The key to the characters in the novel has been written in pencil in the margin of the text. A superb copy, luxuriously bound. From the library of Lucien Descaves (1861-1949), naturalist and libertarian writer and journalist, author of the anti-militarist Sous-offs in 1889 and one of the first members of the Académie Goncourt, with bookplate. He was not included in the Lucien Descaves Literary Library, which was dispersed in 2009.