THIRD RECORDED COPY OF A NOVEL SET IN GUADELOUPE. 8vo. (4), 166 pp, [1 integral blank], plus engr. frontispiece of the heroine baring her chest. Bound in contemporary quarter black morocco over marbled boards, with gilt title on spine. Pink tissue guard over frontispiece; an excellent copy, clean and fresh. Extremely rare first edition of this curious novel set in mid-19th century Guadeloupe, following the adventures of an adolescent colonist and his amorous pursuit of creole girl named Fanny. OCLC shows just two copies worldwide, at the BnF and BL. At the age of 17, Georges de Villiers is sent to Guadeloupe to say with the uncle, who had fled the Revolution. He takes well to the Caribbean lifestyle and soon enough a classically beautiful creole girl (long, black hair, a white face with brown eyes) becomes his love interest. The engraved frontispiece as well as the text of the work casually sexualize this non-Western European figure: she is described on p. 12 as not as tall as the typical French woman, “mais elle portait bien son buste riche de formes” – as demonstrated in the engraving. Fanny is accompanied by her faithful slave Maia, who becomes Georges’ sometime antagonist, and is ultimately poisoned by an exotic substance (p. 98). The present work also includes an entirely separate tale, Viola (pp. 117-166).