LUCAS-DUBRETON, Jean - Lot 105

LUCAS-DUBRETON, Jean L'Eden du Pacifique. Paris, Gallimard, 1929. In-12 (168 x 110 mm) with a frontispiece portrait, 164 pp, 2 ff.n.ch. Paperback, red printed cover (publisher's binding), modern slipcase and folder. Ninth edition. Jean Lucas-Dubreton, pen name of Jean-Marie Lucas de Presluan (1883-1972) was the cousin of Maurice Barrès. The work was published in the series Les histoires extraordinaires, volume 2. The Eden of the Pacific tells the extraordinary story of the Marquis of Rays. The latter had imagined a new French colony in Cape Breton in New Ireland and had sold parcels by subscription between 1877 and 1882. Almost all of the subscribers died on the spot and the marquis was tried for fraud and sentenced in 1884 to six years in prison and a fine of 3000 francs. A good copy.