STENDHAL (Henri Beyle, dit). Le rouge et le noir. Paris, A. Levavasseur, 1831. 2 volumes in-8, [3] f., 398 pp. ; [2] f., 486 pp., [1] f., first edition, each title page adorned with a vignette by Henri Monnier wood-engraved by Porret. Bound in pastiche red half calf in the Romantic style, smooth spine decorated with black fleurons, friezes and rows of gilded pearls, black calf title-pieces, signed Devauchelle. An exceptional copy, free of foxing, of one of the rarest and most sought-after first editions of French literature, with an autograph "hommage de l'auteur" on the false title of the second volume. Today, only seven copies are known to bear a letter from Stendhal. The five copies in the Victor del Litto and Pierre Berès file, including the only personal mailing (addressed to Baroness Charles de Rothschild) and four bearing "hommage de l'auteur" (the identified copies of Baron de Mareste and Félix Faure, the Comtesse de Laubespin copy and the Bibliothèque municipale de Grenoble copy), plus the copy with the enigmatic dispatch (Tessier Sarou, Sale Wednesday September 30, 2020, lot no. 76) and the copy from the Kâ-Mondo sale, Friday May 07, 2021, lot no. 309. Our copy is therefore the eighth known to be enriched with an autograph letter from Stendhal. (autograph note partly cut by the bookbinder, spine slightly unstained) Expert : M. Nicolas ASVISIO