MAURITIUS (François). The Desert of Love. Paris: Bernard Grasset, 1925. - In-8, 183 x 115: (2 ff.), 260 pp., (2 ff. last blank), printed cover. Black box, vertical strip of beige box edged with two gold threads and decorated with a golden dot wheel on the outer edge of the dishes, piece of lizard skin in the centre of the outer edge of the dishes, protruding over the cut and the hunt, 5 horizontal strips of beige box of different lengths, edged with two gold threads, ornamented with a gold-dot wheel and ending in a gold semicircle, on the inside edge of the dishes and passing through the back, smooth back decorated with pieces of lizard skin between the beige boxing bands, beige boxing linings decorated with gold dots between two gilded fillets in the frame, beige moiré silk endpapers, double endpapers, gilded edges on witnesses, cover and back preserved, case (M. Bernard 1930). Original edition of one of the most beautiful novels by François Mauriac, who received the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française in 1926 and who consecrated the success of the author. Mauriac recounts the disillusioned and sterile passion that a father and son have for a well-kept woman named Maria Cross, the counter-example to the conventional wife. ONE OF 120 COPIES ON IMPERIAL JAPANESE . Superb copy in contemporary lined binding signed M. Bernard, perfectly preserved.