Colonial Prize Binding – 1881 Œuvres de Jean Racine – Royal College Mauritius Gilt School Prize – Paris Furne Jouvet

Œuvres de Jean Racine is a handsome 1881 Paris edition of the collected works of Jean Racine, one of the great dramatists of classical French literature. Published by Furne, Jouvet et Cie, Paris, the volume includes a biographical and critical introduction by L. S. Auger of the Académie Française and presents Racine’s celebrated tragedies, including Mithridate and other major works of seventeenth-century French theatre.

This copy is particularly notable as a colonial Victorian prize binding, finely bound in full red polished calf with elaborate gilt tooling and decoration to the spine and boards. The upper board bears the gilt crest and title of Royal College Mauritius, one of the oldest educational institutions in the Indian Ocean and British colonial world. Books such as Œuvres de Jean Racine were traditionally awarded as academic prizes to distinguished students and today remain highly collectible as artefacts of colonial educational history.

The binding is further enhanced by marbled endpapers and marbled page edges, creating an attractive nineteenth-century presentation volume. Œuvres de Jean Racine also contains engraved illustrations, including a portrait frontispiece of Racine.

A decorative and historically interesting nineteenth-century leather prize binding of Œuvres de Jean Racine appealing to collectors of French literature, classical theatre, colonial school prize books, and Victorian bindings.

Condition – Very Good

Condition remains structurally very good. The binding is sound with only moderate wear to the leather boards and a small loss to the spine affecting part of the title panel. The text block remains firmly bound. Foxing is present throughout, typical of the period, but all pages remain clearly legible.