*ABOUT (Edmond). Le Roi des montagnes. Paris : Librairie des bibliophiles, 1883. - In-8, 247 x 154 : portrait, (2 ff.), 299 pp., (2 ff.), 7 plates, printed cover. Havana morocco, boards decorated with a wide band of plum morocco in a frame, decorated with gilt fillets and gilt Greek and surrounded inside and outside by gilt fillets, spine with nerves decorated in the same spirit, framed in havana morocco inside, decorated with volutes of gilt flowers and mosaics of green morocco, lining and endpapers of havana moiré silk, double endpapers, gilt edges, cover and spine kept, case (Marius Magnin). Edition at 250 copies, illustrated with a portrait of the author engraved by Mongin after a photograph by Nadar, and 7 plates engraved by Mongin after Charles Delort. One of 200 numbered copies on Hollande à la forme. UNIQUE COPY, ENRICHED WITH 17 BEAUTIFUL ORIGINAL WATERCOLORS SIGNED BY THE ILLUSTRATOR HENRY VARADE. These watercolors are located on the false title, at the head of the chapter and at the bottom of the book. Varade worked mainly in the first half of the 20th century; he was the illustrator of several books including Histoire d'Aladdin et de la lampe merveilleuse (around 1940), L'Ile au trésor by Stevenson (1946), etc. Also added at the top is an amusing L.A.S. from Edmond About, one page in-12, written from the Château d'Osny on October 6, 1882, inviting his correspondent to a lunch on Sunday, October 15: "You will find Robineau, Bocandé, Sarcey and about fifty other no less privileged people of the fair sex. However, I make it my duty to warn you that the black dress would be rejected with contempt. Spine slightly faded. The slipcase is an addition and does not originally belong to the copy.