Suitte [sic] de la Legende Joyeuse. by [EROTIC VERSE.]

First Edition. 16mo (110 x 75 mm), engraved frontispiece and pp. [106], title and text engraved throughout, calligraphic vignette on title, engraved head-piece above the first verse, tiny marginal wormholes throughout the text, in contemporary green goatskin, elaborate gilt foliate roll-tooled borders, spine gilt in compartments with red morocco label lettered in gilt, decorative floral endpapers in red, yellow and purple, head and foot of spine, and extremities of joints repaired, gilt edges, red silk marker, with Jacques Laget’s pictorial bookplate.

A charming copy of this collection of erotic epigrams, engraved throughout in a delicate script and accompanied by a handsome frontispiece. This is the first of two companion volumes to the original La légende joyeuse, first published in 1749, with Seconde suite de la Légende Joyeuse following in 1751. The epigrams are by several authors, including Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, Ferrand, Grécourt and Piron. Gay says of the style of poetry: ‘Pour citer une de ces petites pièces nous sommes bien embarrassé, car elles sont généralement fort libres’. In keeping with this, it is worth noting that the imprint gives the publisher as ‘Pyne’, a double reference to the French slang for penis and the English publisher John Pine, whose 1733 Horace remained one of the most famous fully-engraved books of the time.

ESTC t135730, at BL, Bodleian, Paxton House and Gottingen.

Gay IV, 260-261.