8vo., publisher's diagonally grained blue cloth with an elaborate outer frame stamped in black, inside of which is another elaborate gilt-stamped oval frame (which incorporates part of the black border), inside of which is an oval-shaped picture of soup being served from a large copper pot. This scene has been PRINTED IN COLOR CHROMOLITHOGRAPHY and then pasted in place. The spine is heavily decorated in gilt and black; the rear cover is framed in a black-stamped border. All edges are gilt in a copper-rainbow foil, plain gray endpapers. The binding is signed in gilt (as part of the plaque) by the designer, A. Souze, the binder, LeNègre, and the publisher. A most original (Experimental?) binding combining a variety of techniques to achieve its effects. We have never run across such a combination before.This is one of the many popular children's stories by Dumas père, whose complete works fill 103 volumes in the Calmann-Lévy edition. It is handsomely decorated with numerous wood-engravings by Albert-d'Arnoux Bertall (1820-1882) who made humorous desigsn for Parisian periodicals by the thousands and drew many illustrations for popular editions of the day, including Brillat-Savarin's Physiologie du goût (1848).