This book is titled "L'Art D'Etre Grand-Pere", written by Victor Hugo and published by J. Hetzel in Paris circa 1888, it's in the original French, and the title means "The Art of Being A Grandfather". The book is 1/2 bound and has five raised bands with gilt lettering on the spine, marbled covers and marbled endpapers, it's inscribed "Virginia Parker, Prix d'exactitude, le 26 Mai 1911" on a blank endpaper in front, which means the book was awarded to her as a prize for accuracy, the half-title page says the book came from Oeuvres Complètes de Victor Hugo, there are 232 pages of text, followed by two blank pages and eight pages of Contents ("Tables") at the end, for a total of 242 pages in the book, and the top edge is gilt. Victor Hugo (1802 - 1885) was a French Romantic writer who wrote The Hunchback of Notre-Dame and Les Miserables, among others, and is considered one of the greatest French writers of all time. This book was first published in 1877 and one of the last books of poems he ever wrote, and his works have inspired music, such as the opera Rigoletto and the musical Les Misérables, and he campaigned for social causes such as the abolition of capital punishment. In 1871 Hugo's 44 year-old son Charles died of a stroke, and Charles's wife died shortly afterwards, Victor became the guardian of their children, and the poems describe the feelings of a grandfather entrusted with the care of young grandchildren. Love and tenderness are celebrated, discipline is not as important as it used to be, the laughter of grandchildren softens the bleakness of old age, and a trip to the zoo sets off all his musings. The book is 8vo. and measures 7 1/4 x 4 7/8 in. wide, with a tight binding and clean pages and text, with a tad of rubbing at the heel and crown of the spine, a bit at the top and bottom edge of the boards, and light rubbing at the tips, and an attractive copy of this title with poems about love and real life that had meaning for the author. #54 #1577