HERVIEU (Louise). The Soul of the Circus. Morality crowned by the Académie Française. Paris: Librairie de France, F. Sant' Andrea and L. Marcerou, 1924. - In-4, 347 x 272: frontispiece, (4 ff. first two blank), 38 pp. (5 ff. last blank), 13 plates, illustrated cover. Half lilac morocco with corners, gilt fillets, spine gilt, untrimmed, cover and spine preserved (L. Bernard). First edition of this "very interesting and highly rated publication" (Carteret, IV, 202). (Carteret, IV, 202). In it, Louise Hervieu celebrates the circus and all its sides (Les enfants au cirque, Les cirques forains, La loge des clowns, La jugleuse, etc.), incorporating the drama entitled Le Tireur à la bougie (The Candle Shooter) performed and composed by the Fratellinis. The edition is richly illustrated with a beautiful cover by Mariano Andreu, 29 compositions in the text and 14 plates, reproduced in black and in colour by Daniel Jacomet, after the greatest artists of the time, such as Jacques-Émile Blanche, Jean-Gabriel Daragnès, Maurice Denis, André Favory, Raoul Dufy, Hermann Paul, Pierre Laprade, Luc-Albert Moreau, Georges Rouault, Dunoyer de Segonzac, Antoine Bourdelle, Pierre Bonnard, André Rouveyre, Jean Cocteau, Félix Vallotton, Picasso, André Lhote, etc. Edition of 403 numbered copies. One of 25 on vergé de Rives (n° 34), numbered and signed by the publisher. This copy is enriched with the following items: - Autograph manuscript signed by the novelist Georges Delamare (1881-1975), editorialist of the French radio, 1 page and a half in-4 . Interesting column on the circus, given on the radio by Delamare in his series of Libres propos on October 21, 1953. A few erasures. - Self-portrait signed in pen of the clown Grock, on in-12 paper on the letterhead of the Moderne palace hotel. - Autograph manuscript signed by the actor José Noguéro (1905-1993), 2 1/2 pages in-4. Text intended for a program of the Medrano circus. No erasures. - Clipping from the newspaper L'Aurore of January 7, 1963, including the article by Gustave Joly on the closing of the Medrano circus. Small cracks without gravity at the hinges.