La Guerre des Deux Roses (1851) | (The War of Two Roses)

By M. Todière — Fine French Binding with Gilt Edges

Published 1851
Mame et Cie., Publisher, Tours, France

A visually arresting 1851 French edition of La Guerre des Deux Roses (The War of the Two Roses) by historian M. Todière, beautifully bound in midnight blue/black cloth with an exquisite bouquet of gilt and hand-colored roses adorning the front cover. The spine is richly gilt with elaborate floral tooling and the title stamped in gold. Decorative back board. Gilt to all edges. Illustrated with full-page dramatic engravings, including a detailed frontispiece and additional full-page battle scenes. . Some light foxing to a few pages. Binding firm. Colors/gilt vibrant. 

This historical work offers a compelling account of the Wars of the Roses—an English dynastic conflict between the houses of York and Lancaster—framed through a 19th-century French scholarly lens.

The term “War of the Roses” refers to a series of civil wars in 15th-century England fought between two rival branches of the royal House of Plantagenet:
    •    House of Lancaster used the red rose as its emblem
    •    House of York used the white rose 

These symbols were not widely used during the wars themselves (1455–1487), but were later popularized by historians and writers — most famously by Shakespeare and then by 19th-century romantic historians. The “roses” came to represent the opposing factions retrospectively.

The wars were brutal struggles for control of the English throne, and they decimated the aristocracy. When the conflict ended, the victorious Henry VII of Lancaster married Elizabeth of York, symbolically uniting the two houses — and their emblems — into the Tudor rose (a red and white rose combined).

Condition: Near Fine

Dimensions: 

A striking addition to any collection of fine bindings or historical works on England.