Mes Souvenirs de vingt ans de séjour à Berlin; ou Frédéric le Grand, sa famille, sa cour, son gouvernement, son Académie, ses écoles, et ses amis littérateurs et philosophes; par Dieudonné Thiébault, de l’Académie Royale de Berlin, de la Société libre des Sciences et Arts de Paris, etc. Seconde Edition, revue et corrigée. Tome Premier [-Cinquième]. Frédéric le Grand. Paris, Buisson, 1805.
First Edition. Five volumes, 8vo (190 x 115 mm), pp. [viii], xlvii, [i], [49]-372, [4]; [iv], 375, [1]; [iv], 383, [1]; [iv], 331, [1]; [iv], 426, final gathering of volume four misbound; signed by the publisher and author, in contemporary half calf over pale speckled boards, orange and black morocco labels and numbering pieces, black morocco labels lettered in gilt ‘Pillet Will’ at the foot of each spine.
Second edition of Dieudonné Thiebault’s detailed memoirs of the court of Frederick II covering Frederick himself, his family, the court, the Academy, schools, philosophers and intellectuals, and the military and civil government of Prussia. Thiebault had first gone to Berlin in 1765 to take up a post as Professor of Literature at the Academy on the recommendation of d’Alembert. He subsequently became an advisor to the king, helping him with his addresses to the Académie des sciences de Berlin and editing many of his works prior to publication. Thiebault remained in Berlin for twenty years, where he was given a place in the Academy and was granted a pension by Frederick.
Provenance: Michel-Frédéric Pillet-Will (1781-1860), with black labels lettered ‘Pillet-Will’ in gilt at the foot of the spines.
See Cioranescu 61689-61692.