BENOIT (Pierre) - LOBEL-RICHE (Almery). - Lot 105

BENOIT (Pierre) - LOBEL-RICHE (Almery). Atlantis. Definitive Edition. Paris: Albin Michel, [1922]. — In-4, 320 x 250: frontispiece, (2 blank folios at the beginning), 194 pp., (5 folios, the last 2 blank), 11 plates, printed cover. Red half-maroquin with corner pieces, ribbed spine decorated with gilded and mosaic motifs, gilded head, untrimmed, cover and spine preserved (Blanchetière). First illustrated edition of Pierre Benoit’s famous novel *L’Atlantide*, whose plot—set in the Algerian desert—blends adventure, colonial exoticism, and an impossible romance, drawing on the myth of Atlantis and Tuareg legends. It was first published in 1919. The illustrations consist of 24 original etchings by the painter and engraver Alméry LOBEL-RICHE (1877–1950), including one frontispiece and 11 out-of-text plates. The print run was limited to 592 copies; this one is one of the 10 non-commercial copies on Arches vellum (No. I). A very fine copy in a mosaic binding by Blanchetière. Very rare light foxing on a few pages, nothing serious.