# Is "Le Rouge et le Noir" by Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Le Rouge et le Noir by Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) (A. Levavasseur, Paris, 1831) is identified by: Levavasseur, Paris; approx. The census inverts the dating and is corrected here.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Two volumes in-8, A. Levavasseur, Paris; approx
- 125 x 195 mm
- The title pages are dated 1831 although the volumes were published on 13 November 1830 — the routine practice of post-dating a book issued in the last weeks of a year to the year following
- Printed in 750 copies, all on ordinary edition (laid) paper: there is no large-paper or deluxe issue, so the paper carries no point
- Title vignettes drawn by Henry Monnier
- Clouzot records the original as very rare
- Publisher imprint reads A. Levavasseur, Paris

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) |
| Publisher | A. Levavasseur, Paris |
| Year | 1831 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Two volumes in-8, A. Levavasseur, Paris; approx |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Two volumes in-8, A. Levavasseur, Paris; approx. 125 x 195 mm. The title pages are dated 1831 although the volumes were published on 13 November 1830 — the routine practice of post-dating a book issued in the last weeks of a year to the year following. Printed in 750 copies, all on ordinary edition (laid) paper: there is no large-paper or deluxe issue, so the paper carries no point. Title vignettes drawn by Henry Monnier. Clouzot records the original as very rare. One unresolved detail: auction transcriptions give the title-page subtitle as 'Chronique du XIXe siècle', while other sources cite Stendhal's later-preferred 'Chronique de 1830'; the sources consulted conflict, and the subtitle is in any case not a printing point.

## Is this the true first?
The census inverts the dating and is corrected here. It states the book was 'issued November 1830 (some titles dated 1831)', implying 1830-dated title pages are the norm and 1831 the exception. The reverse is the case: the title pages of the original edition are dated 1831 across the board, and 13 November 1830 is the publication date. No 1830-dated title page is documented in the sources consulted; a copy offered as 'dated 1830' should be treated as a red flag. The French first is the only edition with precedence — the census is right on that count, though its 'no significant English translation until 1900' is approximate: sources consulted give circa 1898 to circa 1900 and conflict on the exact year and translator, so the date is left unresolved here rather than asserted. C. K. Scott Moncrieff's 1926 The Red and the Black is the best-known English version but is 'first thus' only.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club issue applies to an 1830-31 Paris imprint. Because there is no deluxe paper issue and the whole printing is a single state on laid paper, the identification rests on the Levavasseur imprint, the two-volume in-8 format, the 1831 title-page date and the Monnier vignettes. No first-state text errors are documented in the sources consulted.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Le Rouge et le Noir* by Stendhal (Marie-Henri Beyle) a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/le-rouge-et-le-noir
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.