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A scarce dramatised account of the life, imprisonment and death of young Louis-Charles (1785-1795), son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and briefly titular King of France as Louis XVII following his father’s execution in 1793. Born four years before the French Revolution, he was imprisoned in the Temple Prison with the parents in 1792. Following his father’s execution, he was removed from his mother and put under the care of the cobler and representative of the Paris commune, Antoine Simon, in the hopes that he could be ‘retrained’ and become sympathetic to revolutionary ideals. The harsh and unsanitary conditions in which he was kept undermined his health and died of scrofula a few months after his tenth birthday.
This account, by the German philosopher Gosch, focusses on Louis-Charles’ life after 1791 and includes a number of key figures from his life, not only both his parents, but also his sister, his governess the Marquise de Tourzel, the cruel Antoine Simon and his wife, a friendly monk who brought succour to the royal family, and Maximilien Robespierre. The striking frontispiece shows the young prince dying in his bed and raising his hands to heaven: ‘I have had much to suffer, yet have done nothing bad’. Ironically, it was only a few years after publication of this book that Gosch himself was to die in captivity, in Rendsburg prison.

An important work by the celebrated economist, intended as an introduction to a much earlier work, his Droit publique de l’Europe which was published in 1746. ‘His Principes des negociations... was a courageous attack on the foreign policies of the European powers, and a plea for more rational and honest methods, not only for the sake of justice and humanity, but because they are actually profitable’ (Whitfield, Ernest, Gabriel Bonnot De Mably, New York, 1969). In this work he discusses the principles of international trade, modern warfare and the role of ambassadors and diplomacy. Chapter XVII, ‘Des traités de commerce. Digression sur le luxe’, contains a discussion of the theories of David Hume.
An enormously popular writer in his day, Mably is now hailed variously as communist, republican and utopian. ‘Here also is the beginning of the French School of Utopian Communism properly so called’, says George Catlin, emphasising the importance of Mably’s exposition of the doctrine of equality (see George Catlin, A History of Political Philosophers, London, 1950), while Johnson Wright stakes out new ground for Mably as a republican: ‘Mably should be seen as neither a proto-socialist nor a reactionary thinker, but as a republican - a classical republican, in fact, whose writing represents a later Gallic contribution to the political tradition founded by Machiavelli and Harrington. He is not only interesting as the personification of the revolutionary spirit and as a level-headed reformer, but because he formulated principles which have since been either accepted or re-discovered’ (Wright, History of Political Thought, Volume 13, Number 3, 1992, pp. 391-415).

A charming copy of this scarce and somewhat eccentric work in which the lives of Moses and Homer are compared in an attempt to demonstrate the divine inspiration of Homer. Quattrehomme’s argument is essentially that Homer, with his exquisitely tuned mental capacity and a moral sense not found in other men, must have had a divinity about him. As he could not have had access to the Pentateuch, it follows that he must have been descended from one of the Jews who had received the manna, and therefore had a direct line to that physical manifestation of divinity. He argues furthermore that there was an astrological connection between the two men, even though the absence of an available horoscope prevents his proving that they were born under the same astrological configuration.
‘Pour [Quattrehomme], il n’y a pas de relation historique entre ses deux héros, la second n’a rien connu du premier, mais par un mystérieux décret de la Providence, il s’est trouvé présenter des similitudes frappantes avec lui. ‘Suivant en ce la commune opinion’, écrit il, ‘nous croirons qu’Homère n’a eu aucune notion des livres de Moïse, le Pentateuque de ce temps-là étant inviolablement gardé par les Hébreux’. Cependant, pour expliquer l’esprit et les moeurs affinés d’Homère, ses ‘sentimens mieux assaisonnés’ et son ‘cerveau mieux timbré’, que chez les autres hommes, notre auteur se ‘persuade que quelques Hébreux par succession de temps étant retournés en Egypte, eurent affaire à quelques Egyptienne, duquel accoupiement enfin vint Homère’. Notons que c’est au pouvoir de la manne qu’est attribuée la supériorité des Hébreux et, par voie de conséquence, celle d’Homère. Et à l’appuie de sa thèse sur la similitude de Moïse et d’Homère, cet imaginatif assez plaisant invoque l’astrologie: si l’on pouvait dresser l’horoscope de Moïse, conjecture-t-il, on le verrait soumis qux mêmes configurations astrales que celui d’Homère’ (Noémi Hepp, ‘Les Interprétations religieuses d’Homère’, in Revue des sciences religieuses, 1957, p. 37).
This copy, although it collates as the British Library copy (online at https://dds.crl.edu/page/download/12115/2), does appear to lack the preface. Of the copies listed on OCLC, those at the BN and Trinity College, Cambridge are catalogued as having the preface (BN: ‘In-12, préface, 330p; Trinity College: pp. [6], 329); the copies at the Bibliothèque Mazarine and Princeton make no mention of the preface but may have it (both are catalogued simply as pp. 329) and the Lyon copy notes that it lacks the preface.
The catalogue of Trinity College Library, Cambridge notes that their copy has an extra copy of pp. 241-242 and pp. 263-264 bound in at the end, with the text of the second version of p. 263 having been reset, with the last characters of the first four lines in superscript. This latter piece of information suggests that there must have been two printings of this text, leading one to surmise that the preface may have been suppressed. Internal evidence in this copy suggests that something has been removed and perhaps the title reattached in the manner of a cancel title. Further research into the limited copies available might yield some answers.

A scarce separate edition of Guibert’s celebrated treatise on the art of war, first published as part of his Essai général de tactique, précédé d’un discours sur l’état actuel de la politique et de la science militaire en Europe, avec le plan d’un ouvrage intitulé La France politique et militaire, Londres, 1772.
Guibert’s controversial works on military tactics, despite being initially condemned by the French government, eventually led to many reforms in the French army. He is regarded as one of the leading military tacticians of the pre-revolutionary era and his influence extended within Europe to Frederick II and Napoleon and outside Europe, through von Steuben, to the generals of the American Revolution. Guibert’s works were widely read at the time in France and abroad, and a number of foreign translations were published including those into English, German and even Persian.
‘Of this work [Essai général de tactique] it may be said that it was the best essay on war produced by a soldier during a period in which tactics were discussed even in the salon and military literature was more abundant than at any time up to 1871’ (Encyclopædia Britanicca, 1911).
In addition to his military career and his works on tactics and the art of war, the Comte de Guibert was also a member of the Académie française, published journals of his travels in France and Switzerland, wrote a tragedy, Le Connétable de Bourbon, 1775 and had a love affair with Julie de Lespinasse, whose love letters to him were later published.
‘L'oeuvre de Guibert est neuve en son temps par sa visée totaliste articulée autour de la relation fondamentale entre politique et guerre. Guibert a du cependant courir au plus pressé et rédiger l'Essai. On y trouve une distinction entre deux parties de l'art de la guerre pressentie par d'autres en ce siècle des lumières. Guibert parle de tactique élémentaire et de grande tactique. Dans la défense du système de guerre moderne, il nommera celle-ci la stratégie ou tactique des armées. La redécouverte du concept de stratégie à la fin du XVIIIe siècle tient à une nécessité sémantique. L'articulation des armées fait naître des possibilités nouvelles, à un échelon supérieur par rapport à la tactique des armées-blocs’ (L'Art de la guerre de Machiavel à Clausewitz, 89).

The second edition in French of A discourse of free-thinking, occasion’d by the rise and growth of a sect call’d Free-Thinkers, London 1713, by Anthony Collins, philosopher and thinker, friend and pupil of John Locke and one of the most influential deists of his time. This translation, by Rousset de Missy and Scheurleer, was first published in 1714 and includes the Lettre d’un médecin arabe à un fameux Professseur de l’Université de Hall en Saxe, sur les reproches à fait à Mahomet... traduit à l’arabe, 1713, appended to the 1714 edition printed in the Hague. Also included in this edition is the critical reaction to Collins’ work by Jean-Pierre de Crousaz, Examen du Traité de la liberté de penser, which was first published in Amsterdam in 1718.
At the core of Collins’ argument is his defence of free-thinking as a natural right and a religious duty, for which he used as evidence the many disagreements between the clergy. It was largely this that laid him open to accusations of atheism and using freethinking as a platform for a dangerous self-serving and libertine agenda. The work was publicly burnt in England and provoked dozens of replies including those from Jonathan Swift, Benjamin Hoadly, George Berkeley and Richard Bentley. Collins was forced to leave England for the Netherlands until the controversy died down.

An important Enlightenment essay on the health and ‘physical education’ of children from earliest infancy through to the teenage years. A physician from Geneva, Jacques Ballexserd was a contemporary of Jean Jacques Rousseau, although there was no love lost between the two. Published the same year as Rousseau’s Emile, Ballexserd’s prize-winning dissertation places great significance on the natural aspects of education and is also credited with the first use of the term ‘éducation physique’. A huge controversy followed its publication, as Rousseau accused Ballexserd of plagiarism, a charge which was angrily refuted by Ballexserd.
After an introduction stressing the importance of a mother’s way of life during pregnancy, Ballexserd divides his treatise into the four stages or époques of childhood: the first starts with the care of the new-born baby through to weaning, including the importance of breast-feeding both for mother and baby, to the introduction of exercise and learning to walk at nine months, with warnings about too much kissing and petting from strangers and the dangers of swaddling and rocking babies; the second stage follows the early infancy from weaning through to the age of five or six and is interesting for its perception of the sensitivity of the small child and the dangers both of neglect and ‘over-parenting’; appropriate exercises are also suggested and the importance of plenty of fresh air throughout the seasons. It is also stressed that entertainment rather than instruction is important in guiding a young child’s physical exercise. The third section follows the child through to the age of ten or eleven: the age when in eighteenth century Europe boys changed their clothing and in twenty-first century Europe, they go to secondary school. This section gives details on clothing, nourishment, general health and dentistry, the importance of good sleep and clean air, inoculation and the importance of exercise, which includes the habit for standing for as much of the day as possible, as well as exercises to maintain the body’s natural development and to aid ciruclation: plenty of outside time is recommended in such pursuits as walking, climbing trees and ice-scating. Walking about the house without shoes on is also recommended. The final section follows the child through the teenage years up to about the age of 16: this section continues with advice on food and clothing, but also on melancholy and temperament, with suitable games and recreations and a final section on the uses of tobacco.
This was a popular work with two editions in 1762, one in 1763 and an expanded edition in 1780, along with translations into German, Wichtige Frage, Wie soll man Kinder, von ihrer Geburtsstunde an, bis zu einem gewissen mannbaren Alter (so alhier in das 15te oder 16te Jahr gesetzt wird) der Natur nach erziehen, daß sie gesund bleiben, groß und stark werden und ein langes Leben haben können?: aus dem Französoscjem übersetzt, Strasburg, 1763, and Italian, Dissertazione sull’ educazione fisica de’ fanciulli dalla loro nascita fino alla pubertà, Naples 1763.

The dedication copy, beautifully bound for Prince Giovanni Battista, a member of the prominent Roman family of the Altieri, among whose members was Pope Clement X. The first of these two dissertations, written by the Franciscan Bernardino Mezzadri, discuss the history of the Church and defending it against the theories of the Jesuit, Franciscus Pagius. The second dissertation discusses the life, death and miracles of the martyrs Cosmas and Damian. A long section is devoted to the Roman basilica dedicated to them, details of which are illustrated in two handsome folding plates.

An attractive copy of Louvet de Couvray's novel, with the rare and rather striking frontispieces present in each volume. Uncommon in any state, it is particularly hard to find with the plates, which are not mentioned in any of the references noted below but which evidently belong here and greatly add to the dramatic impact of the narrative.
Taking as its subject matter divorce and the marriage of priests, it is a racy tale with forced vocations and amorous adventures. Set in provincial France, it is written as an epistolary novel featuring Dorothée and Emilie de Varmont, Monsieur Bovile and Madame d'Etioles. It had considerable political influence in France, producing two memorable decrees of the National Convention, the one authorising divorce and the other allowing priests to marry. A piracy of the text gave rise to a court case (Dalloz, Jurisprudence générale du royaume, 1830, XI, 481 and note). Further editions appeared in 1792, 1794 and 1815. It was published more recently by the Université de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, 2001. An English translation was published under the title Emily de Varmont, or Divorce dictated by Necessity, to which are added, the Memoirs of Father Sévin, London, G. Kearsley, 1798 and an American edition, in a translation by Melatiah Nash, was published in New York in 1799 under the title Emilia de Varmont, or the Necessary Divorce, and Memoirs of Curate Sevin: a Moral and Political Tale.

A scarce edition of this popular pocket dictionary in unusual square format. The preliminary leaves contain an advertisement, dated May 27th 1787, a short preface, ‘A Grammatical Introduction to the English Tongue’ and finally ‘A Table of Words that are alike, or nearly alike, in Sound, but different in Spelling and Signification’. The interesting appendices include ‘the most usual Christian Names of Men and Women’, which makes an amusing comparison with the primary school roll call of today, ‘A Succinct Account of the Heathen Gods and Goddesses, Heroes and Heroines, &c. deduced from the best Authorities’ and a list of all the cities, boroughs, market towns and villages in England and Wales, which confirms that Salisbury’s market days have remained unchanged.
Happily unrestored, this is a sublimely tatty copy, that leaves little of its manufacture to the imagination.

This is the first edition of Maupertuis’ scarce philosophical treatise to be published with his consent. The work first appeared in Berlin in 1749, printed from a manuscript copy of the text lent to President Hénault and containing numerous errors. The events surrounding this earlier publication and Maupertuis’ own resolution in printing the present official version are explained in the lengthy preface. The work is dedicated to Frédéric II, addressed as, ‘Illustre Ami’, who himself translated Maupertuis’ work.
Written during what was probably the happiest period of his life, when he was living in Berlin and enjoying the close friendship of Frédéric II, the Essai de Philosophie Morale is in effect Maupertuis’ philosophical testament. He examines the nature of good and evil, happiness and unhappiness, pessimism, stoicism, sensuality, pleasure and pain, arguing that in ordinary life the sum of pleasures surpasses the sum of misfortune and suffering. He goes on to explore ways in which the human condition might be improved and discusses the role that religion might play in this.

An attractive copy of this scarce essay on aesthetics by the philosopher-priest, Cartaud de la Vilate. In his Pensées critiques sur les mathématiques, 1733, he calls into question the certainties of mathematics and debates its usefulness. His Essai historique et philosophique sur le Goût, which first appeared in an Amsterdam edition of 1736, attracted considerable attention and was several times reprinted, as late as 1970 when Slatkine reprinted it. Grimm said of it: ‘L’auteur est dans un délire continuel. Son style est vif, rapide... marche au hasard’ (DLF, p. 272).
‘L’on peut aisément juger par la façon don [sic] ce livre est écrit, que je l’ai destiné à ces lecteurs distraits & peu sérieux, qui aiment à voltiger sur divers sujets sans trop les approfondir. Le mérite d’amuser cette partie du public, m’a paru de quelque importance. J’ai employé un style propre à ce dessein, où il s’agit de faire éfleurer la littérature à des gens qui n’ont gueres que de l’imagination, & qui l’ont vive’ (Preface).
The work is divided into two parts: the first, which takes up the larger part of the work, is ‘Essais historiques & philosophiques sur le Goût’. The second part is wider-ranging and includes shorter essays, such as ‘Le Goût est-il arbitraire?’, ‘Des fondemens de l’harmonie’, ‘En quoi consiste le géométrique de l’harmonie’ and ‘L’ignorance est-elle plus avantageuse à la politique des princes, que l’étude des lettres?’.

An excellent, fresh copy of the first French translation of Wallace’s Dissertation on the numbers of mankind in antient and modern times, first published in Edinburgh in 1753. ‘An acute and suggestive contribution to economics’ (Alexander Gordon in DNB), the work included a vigorous though unsuccessful attack on Hume’s Political Discourses, notably on his chapter on the ‘Populousness of Ancient Nations’. This French translation was made under the supervision of Montesquieu. A further English edition was published with a prefatory memoir in 1809.

A good copy of the first edition of Thomas' popular and wide-ranging study of women. He gives the history of concubines, the heroines of Sparta, Athenian prostitutes and famous women of the modern era. He examines the influence on women of Christianity and chivalry and compares the different abilities of women and men. Even though in general women he deems women not to be very talented or capable of serious study, nonetheless he does endow them with some qualities. Translated into English as An Essay on the Character, Manners and Genius of Women in different Ages, London 1773, by a Mr. Russell. Another English translation, by Mrs. Kindersley, followed in 1781. More recently, a scholarly edition has been published under the title Qu’est-ce qu’une femme?, Paris, 1989, with commentaries by Diderot and Madame d’Épinay and a preface by Élisabeth Badinter.

Bound after Thomas’ famous essay are three scarce pamphlets:
1. BOUFFLERS, Stanislas-Jean de (1738-1815).
Lettres de M. le Chevalier de Boufflers, pendant son voyage en Suisse, à Madame sa Mère. En Suisse, 1772.
Second edition of this scarce pamphlet first published in 1771. OCLC lists BN, Geneva, Cornell (and BN only of the 1771 edition).
2. VOLTAIRE
Lettre de M. de V... Sur un écrit anonyme. [s.l. probably Paris or Lyon], 1772.
A scarce edition of Voltaire’s reply to an anonymous pamphlet entitled Réflexions sur la jalousie, pour servir de commentaire aux derniers ouvrages de M. de Voltaire, Amsterdam 1772. The author of the pamphlet has been identified as Charles Georges Leroy. The first edition of Voltaire’s riposte was published ‘à Ferney 20 avril 1772’. With one or two small differences, the text of this edition matches that published in the Mercure in June 1772.
OCLC lists BN, Institut et Musée Voltaire, Toronto and Yale.
BN Voltaire Catalogue 4283; not in Bengesco.
3. VOLTAIRE
La Bégueule. Conte Moral. [Paris], 1772.
First Edition of Voltaire’s satirical verse conte in which his heroine, bored by her life of luxury, takes a lover to add spice to her life. Famously, this tale contains the first appearance of Voltaire’s phrase ‘le mieux est l’ennemi du bien’.
OCLC lists BL, Institut et Musée Voltaire, NYPL, Yale, Cambridge, Wake Forest and National Library of Australia.
BN Voltaire Catalogue 2082; Bengesco 653.

A charming copy of one of the most important pastoral novels in French literature, including Florian's introductory essay on the pastoral form. Inspired by Daphnis and Chloe and set at the end of the fifteenth century, the novel tells of the love of the shepherd Némorin for the beautiful Estelle. She returns his love but out of duty and gratitude is obliged to marry another shepherd, Méril, after he rescues her father. Némorin despairs but is saved by Méril's heroic sacrifice of his own life in battle, a sacrifice made so that the lovers might be united. Estelle is thought to be a rather magnificent heroine, of whom the elderly Buffon remarked: 'la douce, l'aimable, l'intéressante Estelle a suspendu mes maux'.
'Dans les pastorales comme dans les arlequinades de Florian, toujours le ciel est bleu, l'amour loyal, les femmes chastes; la vertu, qui est spontanée et facile, est infailliblement récompensée. Mais l'auteur n'est pas dupe. Mainteneur fidèle de la tradition arcadienne et utopique immanente à tout le classicisme, il propose au lecteur un pèlerinage aux siècles d'or, un retour anticipé au paradis perdu. Et il est permis de rester sensible encore à la fluidité mélodique de sa prose et de ses vers' (DLF 487).
Set in the Cévennes, the author's birthplace, this work is also celebrated for its description of the local topography, the mountains, landscapes and flora of the region. 'Je veux célébrer ma patrie', he wrote of Estelle, 'ces beaux climats ou la verte olive, la mure vermeille, la grappe dorée croissent ensemble sous un ciel toujours d'azur'. To augment the local feeling of the work, Florian gives the Provencal translation for a number of the shepherdess' rhymes in the footnotes. The importance of Florian's works to the local community was witnessed in the early twentieth century by the Felibrige revival movement in Provence, which paid an annual tribute to him.
An enormously popular novel, several editions were published within the first year, at least five bearing the present imprint ('de l'imprimerie de Monsieur', ie the brother of Louis XVI who reigned from 1815 as Louis XVIII). Cioranescu gives the present edition as the first, but MMF demote it to third place.

An attractive copy of the first edition of this popular novel. Having lost her first husband to the scaffold in 1793, the comtesse de Flahaut fled France with her young son and escaped across Germany to England. On her trying to return to France some years later, she met M. de Souza at one of the barricades and married him. The two then returned to Paris where she was welcomed for her pure spirit, the delicacy of her judgements and the charm of her conversation. She wrote a number of animated and agreeable novels, the most famous of which is Adele de Senage, which established her reputation, although many critics have preferred Eugene de Rothelin. It is a novel which paints aristocratic society as it was before the revolution, seen without its faults and presented as a thing of grace, amiability and distinction.

'Aperçus très-fins sur la société; tableaux vrais et bien terminés; style orné avec mesure... l'esprit qui ne dit rien de vulgaire et le goût qui ne dit rien de trop' (Mme de P, NBG).

An attractive set of this elegant poetical compilation by Richard Graves, author of the highly successful picaresque novel, The Spiritual Quixote, 1773. The two volumes were published four years apart, and the second volume is more commonly found with the second edition of the first volume which was brought out with it. The first volume is dedicated to Lady Head, wife of Sir Thomas Head, of Langley in Berkshire, and the second volume is dedicated to Mrs Warburton ‘as a slender tribute of gratitude for many and important favours received from the family at Prior-Park’. The first volume begins with an eight page Apology - ‘some apology is undoubtedly requisite for publishing at this time of day Madrigals in form’ - in which Graves gives an account of his poetical development, charting influences from Voltaire to his friend William Shenstone. He concludes by stating that, if any of his poems had been immoral, he would sooner have consigned them ‘to eternal oblivion’ than have printed them, even though he fears their destination to humble: ‘to be exposed on stalls... or to encrease the trash of circulating libraries’. The preface to the second volume explains that much of the contents were written for a poetical society at ‘B- E-n’, viz. the literary salon hosted by Anna Miller at her house in Batheaston. Although a number of important writers attended the salon, including David Garrick and Anna Seward, its pretentious customs and Miller’s own mediocre poetry caused it to be widely mocked. ‘This society, I am aware’, writes Graves, ‘has been exposed to the undeserved insults of envy and disappointment: and even to the affected sneers of some fastidious critics of a more respectable character’, by which he probably means Dr. Johnson.
The volumes are attractively illustrated, with engraved frontispieces, vignettes and tail-pieces. The frontispiece to volume one depicts a bucolic scene illustrating a quotation from Virgil, engraved by Joseph Collyer (1748-1827); the two further engraved vignettes in the text are also by Collyer. The frontispiece to volume two, featuring another bucolic scene, is by Charles Grignion (1721-1810). This shows a flighty lady playing the tamborine (possibly Euphrosyne herself, the goddess of mirth and one of the three graces) with three ladies dancing in the background. The half-page engraving on the final leaf (also by Grignion, after C.W.B.) depicts an antique urn decorated with laurels: presumably this refers to the vase used at the Batheaston salon, which was a key feature in the lambasting of the society. Purchased by Anna Miller after it was dug up at Frascati in 1759, the vase was decorated with laurels and placed on an altar, where guests were invited to approach, in order to place their poetical compositions in the vase.

A delightful devotional work produced for the Marian confraternity at Salzburg University, the Congregation of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin. Arranged to provide devotional guidance throughout the year, the first part of the work contains a hagiography of a dozen saints, arranged according to their feast days, with one chosen for each month of the year. Engraved on the recto of these leaves is a narrative portrait of the saint set within an oval cartouche surrounded by scenes from his or her life, labelled with the saint’s name and accompanied in some cases with small bits of text for extra clarification. On the verso of each of these leaves is a short biography of the featured saint.
Several editions of this work exist for different congregations and while the text is similar, the saints tend to vary. In this edition, where the roll of saints include some lesser known ones, the 12 featured saints are St. Aldegundis, SS. Germanus & Randoaldus, St. Aldemarius, St. Wicterpus, SS. Paul, St. Bardo, St. Tatwinus, St. Canoaldus, St. Edith, St. Desiderius, St. Portianus and St. Jodocus. Set out according to the calendar year rather than the liturgical year, the work is described on the title as a ‘strena’ or ‘New Year’s gift’. Similar works also appeared under different titles, such as Orationes Partheniae and Officia sodalis Mariani, but with the same basic content. Given how many are likely to have been produced, it is surprising that individual editions such as the present have survived in such small numbers.
Following the main text is a table of contents and various lists of the members of the confraternity. These begin with the most senior appointments but also include a list of all new student members who have joined in 1766 and 1767, listed according to their discipline. The final list gives the names of all those community members deceased from 1764 to 1767.

A delightfully printed selection of fables glorying in a profusion of typographical decoration from the Quillau press, at this point run by Quillau’s widow. This scarce first appearance of Delacour Damonville’s work consists entirely of poems in the form of quatrains. It contains 150 fables, followed by 50 Maxims, a final Epilogue, Envoi and Réponse and a concluding quatrain ‘Au Critique’. The work is preface by a dedication, to a ‘M***’, also in the form of a quatrain, and quatrains addressed to the Reader, to Critics and to Children. Two final introductory poems (quatrains, of course) provide a portrait of Aesop and the ‘Dessein de la Fable’. The charm and wonder of this work is two fold: in the simplicity of form, adhered to throughout, and in the luxuriance of typographical ornament abounding on every page.
This appears to have been Delacour Damonville’s only work: it is the only entry in Cioranescu and we have been unable to discover anything else about the author. A new edition by Joseph Barbou was published in 1756 with the subtitle ‘à l’usage des enfans’, which would tie in with the dedicatory verse ‘Aux Enfants’ included among the preliminary quatrains. A further edition appeared in 1761 and was accompanied by plates, though it would be hard to beat the simple charm of the presentation of this first edition.

A popular juvenile conduct book using fiction to instruct children in the proper treatment of animals. This important work anthropomorphises animals in order to use them as models of good and moral behaviour, while at the same time emphasising the beauty of the natural environment, warning against the abuse of animals and advocating proper respect for all creatures. In the introduction, Trimmer refers to her earlier An Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature, 1780, in which Henry and Charlotte were ‘indulged by their Mamma’ and taken on nature walks in the fields and gardens. As a consequence of this, they ‘contracted a great fondness for Animals’ and began to wish that they could talk to them. ‘Their Mamma, therefore, to amuse them, composed the following Fabulous Histories; in which the sentiments and affections of a good Father and Mother, and a Family of Children, are supposed to be possessed by a Nest of Redbreasts; and others of the feathered race, are, by the force of imagination, endued with the same faculties’ (Introduction, p. x). The Redbreasts have made their nest in a wall covered with ivy and the mother hen is sitting on four eggs when the story opens. Soon, the happy day arrives when the four eggs hatch, ‘to whom for the sake of distinction, I shall give the names of Robin, Dicky, Flapsy, and Pecksy’. The stories involve both the upbringing of the young robins and the parents’ considerate sharing of responsibility for them, set against the background of the human family in whose garden they live, whose children, Frederick and Harriet, enjoy feeding the birds.
It was an overnight best-seller, with numerous editions well into the nineteenth century. Illustrations, often attributed to Thomas Bewick, were added to later editions. ESTC lists eleven eighteenth century editions, six London editions broadly shared by the same publishers as this edition, three Dublin editions and two Philadelphia editions. Despite this popularity, the work remains fairly scarce and each of the early editions appear to survive in relatively modest numbers. The first edition (t76171), produced by the same publishers earlier in the same year, is similarly scarce: well held in the UK (BL, Glasgow and three copies in Oxford), but only four copies in North America (Huntington, Miami, Morgan and Toronto).

A presentation copy of this attractively produced volume of songs printed by Mary Mayler, who ran one of Bath’s most successful bookshops, lending libraries and publishing houses. A note on the verso of the title-page states that the volume was privately printed: ‘These songs are all published with Music, but being the Property of various Persons, the Author has not the power of publishing them collectively. This Volume has therefore been printed for private circulation’.
Produced at the height of Bayly’s fame when his reputation as lyric poet and songwriter made him a popular feature at fashionable soirées in Bath, at one of which he met his future wife, Helena Beecher Hayes. This privately produced volume was evidently intended as a gracious compliment for favours received: this presentation copy is one of a number of presentation copies extant (unfortunately the inscription on the title-page is hard to read: Mrs Davison? Mrs Davinay?).
The volume includes many of his most famous songs, such as ‘I’d be a butterfly born in a bower’ (p. 28), composed on his wedding journey at Lord Ashdown’s villa near Southampton. The notes at the end of this work include a Latin version of that song composed by Francis Wrangham. 1829 also marked the year that Bayly moved to London and embarked on his theatrical career, one at which he enjoyed a fair success and which saw him through financially when the combined blow of loss of income from his Irish estates and the collapse of his coalmining investments hit him in 1831 and it became necessary for him to support his family by writing.