ZOLA (Émile). La Confession de Claude. Paris: Librairie Internationale; Bruxelles, Leipzig, Livourne: A. Lacroix, Verboeckhoven & Ce, 1866 [1865]. -In-18, 183 x 115: (2 ff.), 320 pp. 36 pp. catalog, printed cover. Half caramel morocco with corners, gilt fillets, ornate ribbed spine, gilt head, untrimmed, cover preserved (Yseux Sr de Thierry-Simier). Carteret II, 489. - Vicaire VII, 1195. First edition of the author's first novel, partly autobiographical, begun in 1862 and completed in 1865. It is recorded in the Bibliographie de la France of November 25, 1865, but, as Vicaire points out, most books published at the end of the year were dated the following year. It was not printed on large paper. Enriched copy with an autograph letter signed by Émile Zola, two pages in-8, dated December 4, 1865, folded and mitered. It is addressed to a newspaper editor to whom Émile Zola takes the liberty of also sending his latest novel, probably La Confession de Claude: "This is a novel of which I am the author and in which I thought I could study what passion has of the most fatal and inexplicable." A good copy bound by Yseux, complete with the publisher's catalog for November 1865. Soiling and restoration to cover. Last leaf (table) very short of margin.