PROUST (Marcel). Jean Santeuil. Paris, Gallimard, 1952. 3 volumes in-12, jansenist midnight blue polished chagrin, gilt fillet inside, gilt head, untrimmed, cover and spine (Jean Raymond). First edition. One of 27 first copies on japon impérial. The genesis of La Recherche, this quasi-autobiographical early novel, begun in 1895 and left unfinished, was not published until thirty years after its author's death, by Bernard de Fallois. "Proustians will meet here the Proust they love, but younger, sometimes clumsy, often a great artist, and they will discover an unknown Proust," praises André Maurois in his preface to the book. A very fine copy.