Pires, Fernando Tasso Fragoso; Mercadante, Paulo (Foreword); Jennings, Ralph E. (English Translation)

Antigas Fazendas de Cafe da Provincia Fluminense [The Old Coffee Estates of the Fluminense Provence] (ASSOCIATION COPY - once owned by Claudio Arrau)

[Rio de Janeiro]: Nova Fronteira Memoria Brasileira, 1980. Hardcover. Folio size, 124 pp., inscribed by Claudio Arrau. Near Fine. Item #16020555

A little-known work on the great coffee plantations of the nineteenth century in the area around Rio de Janeiro. Coffee first started to appear in the area around 1760, and by 1822 there were plantations in the area with more than fifty thousand coffee plants, with massive tracts of rainforest being cleared first from the vicinity of Rio and later Sao Paulo for coffee growing. The families owning the plantations built huge homes, some of them almost small castles - one of which, the Parque Sao Clemente, had ceilings so beautiful that special reclining chairs were installed so that they could be better admired. This book explores those fazendas, both inside and out, to provide a glimpse into this glittering past. The text of the book is in Portuguese, and an accompanying softcover book has the English translation.

This volume was previously owned by Claudio Arrau (1903-1991), a Chilean pianist widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century.

___DESCRIPTION: Quarter tan cloth with black paper boards, pictorial paste-down of one of the plantation houses inset into the front board with titlte in silver, brown lettering on the spine, decorative endpapers of stylised palm trees, title page in red and black with a small tipped-in photograph, tipped-in colour photographs throughout, drawn map towards the rear of the book showing the location of the fazendas along the Rio Paraiba do Sul; folio size (13.75" by 10.5"), pagination: [i-iii] [1-2] 3-111 [112-121], inscribed by Claudio Arrau "Rio de Janeiro 1981" on the first flyleaf. Please note the text is in Portuguese. Accompanying English translation in English a softcover booklet in black paper wraps, stapled at the spine, with gold lettering and publisher's device on the front cover, 19 pp. In a slipcase covered in green paper, with stylised palm tree pattern and a pictorial paper label on the front board.

___CONDITION: Volume is near fine, with clean boards, a strong, square text block with solid hinges, straight corners with no rubbing, the interior is clean and bright with the only prior owner markings in both volumes being the name written of Claudio Arrau as noted above, and each of the tipped-in photographs is in fine condition; some light, stray soil marks on the spine and a small, old dampstain on the bottom edge of the spine, a few of the final pages have some minor rippling from the old damp, else fine. The accompanying English translation is also near fine, clean overall, with a few shallow creases on the wraps. The slipcase is very good, strong and sturdy, clean overall, some minor overall edge wear, and it appears to have gotten wet at some point as the back is warped and the paper coverings are rippled.

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Price: $200.00