1902-1907 Essays of Maeterlinck (Life of the Bee, Treasure of the Humble, Life and Flowers, The Buried Temple, The Double Garden, Wisdom and Destiny)

Description

Fine Binding, Leather Binding, Rebound

A lovely six volume set of works by Maurice Maeterlinck, carefully rebound in red half leather binding. All volumes were printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. and published by George Allen, Ruskin House. They are all uniform in size and style, and were translated by Alfred Sutro. Maurice Maeterlinck was a Belgian writer who wrote primarily in French. He was a well-known playwright and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1911. The first volume, 'The Buried Temple', was published in 1902 and contains a frontispiece portrait of the author. Within this volume are five essays: 'The Mystery of Justice', 'The Evolution of Mystery', 'The Kingdom of Matter', 'The Past', and 'Luck'. It is also a first UK edition of the book. The second volume, 'The Life of the Bee', was published as part of the eighth edition in 1904. Maeterlinck uses the lifecycle of the bee to make comments on humans and society. Essays in this volume include 'On the Threshold of the Hive', 'The Swarm', 'The Foundation of the City', 'The Young Queens', 'The Nuptial Flight', 'The Massacre of the Males', and 'The Progress of the Race'. The third volume, 'The Double Garden', was printed as a first edition in 1904. It contains essays on various topics, including 'On the Death of a Little Dog', 'On a Motor-Car', 'The Modern Drama', and more. The fourth volume, 'Treasure of the Humble', is a reprint of the first edition, published in 1907. Essays contained in this volume are 'Silence', 'The Awakening of the Soul', 'Mystic Mortality', 'The Star', and more. The fifth volume, 'Life and Flowers' is a first edition and was printed in 1907. It contains various essays, among which are 'Immortality', 'Rome', 'The Intelligence of the Flowers', and more. The sixth and final volume, 'Wisdom and Destiny', was printed in 1910 as part of the eighth edition. Maeterlinck worked on this piece for nearly two years, and it was meant as a conquest to discover the abode of truth. It is different than the other volumes in that it does not have separate essays with different titles - it is simply one long essay with multiple parts. It contains an introduction by the translator Alfred Sutro.