Quarto. 384pp. Title page in red and black. With half-title, four photographic plates and 125 musical examples. Uncut in contemporary morocco-backed mustard cloth boards, lettered in gilt to spine. A little rubbed and marked. Marbled endpapers. Inked presentation inscription: 'A. M. Ernest Newman Critique musical au Sunday Times confraternal hommage. J. Prod'homme.' to head of half-title.

A presentation copy of French musicologist Jacques-Gabriel Prod’homme's (1871-1956) study on Beethoven's early years, addressed to Ernest Newman (1868 – 1959), English musicologist and music critic for the Sunday Times from 1920 until his death nearly forty years later - although there is no evidence the volume received a review. Newman had written himself in 1911 a piece on Beethoven's "Unsterbliche Geliebte" for the Musical Times, and later published the acclaimed essay 'The Unconscious Beethoven' (1930) on the centenary of the great composer's death.