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An attractive copy of this early edition of Diderot's controversial novel, listed second by David Adams and given as the second edition by Tchemerzine. The plates all correspond to Adams BI2 except for the first plate in the second volume which has been bound at p. 265 and is marked as such. All the plates have the word ‘Les Bijoux’ underneath the picture and the volume and page numbers marked at the top. The frontispiece, which is the same as Adams’ BI1, is marked ‘tom. I’ and ‘Frontispiece des Bijoux’. The final leaf as called for by Adams, ‘Avis au Relieur pour placer les Figures’ has been discarded.
Three editions of Diderot’s Bijoux were published in 1748, all with the same title and imprint but with varying illustrations, this edition with the shorter pagination than the other two. This is Diderot’s first novel, written to raise funds to pay for the expensive lifestyle of his mistress, Madame de Puisieux. Based on the medieval tale 'Le chevalier que faisait les cons parler' and heavily influenced by Caylus' adaptation of this and Crebillon fils' contes libertins, Diderot soon came to disavow his earliest and raciest work. It caused an enormous scandal on its publication and, along with his Lettres sur les aveugles, was the cause of Diderot's being imprisoned in Vincennes. This is Diderot's nearest approach to the world of Thérèse Philosophe (on the publication of Bijoux Indiscrets this was frequently attributed to him), 'the bawdy, naughty, cheeky world of the early Enlightenment, where everything was held up to question and nothing was sacred' (Darnton p. 90).
Even in this, his most scandalous and light-hearted work, Diderot was beginning to express the philosophical ideas that came to fruition in his later work. 'La critique du cartésianisme, des systèmes à priori, des rêveries de la métaphysique, l'apologie de Newton, certaines théories empiristes et associationnistes, les professions de foi de naturalisme moral montrent que, même dans un ouvrage très léger... Diderot n'oublie pas la philosophie' (H. Bénac, quoted by Henri Berthaut in Grente's Dictionnaire des Lettres Françaises).

The first edition of Diderot's first novel, in a modern green vellum binding. Diderot’s early best-seller was said to have been written to pay for the expensive lifestyle of his mistress, Madame de Puisieux. Based on the medieval tale 'Le chevalier que faisait les cons parler' and heavily influenced by Caylus' adaptation of this and Crebillon fils' contes libertins, Diderot soon came to disavow his earliest and raciest work. It caused an enormous scandal on its publication and, along with his Lettres sur les aveugles, was the cause of Diderot's being imprisoned in Vincennes. This is Diderot's nearest approach to the world of Thérèse Philosophe (on the publication of Bijoux Indiscrets this was frequently attributed to him), 'the bawdy, naughty, cheeky world of the early Enlightenment, where everything was held up to question and nothing was sacred' (Darnton p. 90).
Even in this, his most scandalous and light-hearted work, Diderot was beginning to express the philosophical ideas that came to fruition in his later work. 'La critique du cartésianisme, des systèmes à priori, des rêveries de la métaphysique, l'apologie de Newton, certaines théories empiristes et associationnistes, les professions de foi de naturalisme moral montrent que, même dans un ouvrage très léger... Diderot n'oublie pas la philosophie' (H. Bénac, quoted by Henri Berthaut in Grente's Dictionnaire des Lettres Françaises).

A handsome set, in an English binding, of Rousseau’s Confessions, with a contemporary English female provenance. This is a mixed set, comprising the first edition of Volumes III and IV (conforming to Bernard Gagnebin and Lucien Scheler in Tchemerzine V, 563) and a reprint of Volumes I and II, with the same imprint, ‘A Genève, 1782’. It also has the supplementary fifth volume, Seconde Partie des Confessions de J.J. Rousseau. Suivie d’un nouveau choix de Lettres de l’Auteur, Geneve 1789 (OCLC lists the Vassar Collection only).
The bindings on the first two volumes, published in 1782, are slightly different to those of the final three volumes, but each of them bears the ownership inscription of Elizabeth Bateman. In the first volume she has added ‘2 vols’ and so presumably she purchased them prior to the continuations, which were published some seven years later, and had them bound. In turn, she must have had the continuation volumes bound to match the first two, but perhaps by a different binder: the red labels and the green circular numbering pieces are uniform, but the actual tools used for the binding were different. This is a lovely example of literature on the go and shows how serial publications actually worked. That this is also an import, and an import owned by a female collector, rather adds to the resonance of this particular copy.

An excellent set with an illustrious female provenance of this important faux mémoire telling of Paris social life and the sentimental education of the eponymous hero. With a preface addressed to his father, this was one of Crébillon fils’ earliest literary triumphs and was widely read - the Earl of Shaftesbury is known to have read it - and translated into English as The wanderings of the heart and mind, London, 1751. These three volumes represent the scarce first editions, the first volume printed in Paris by Prault and the subsequent two volumes printed in the Hague by Gosse and Neaulme. The work was an overnight best-seller and editions were published frequently for the next half century or so. It was also included in the Bibliothèque du campagne, 1738-42 and in the Bibliothèque universelle des romans, 1786. The first volume is more often found with later editions of the second and third volumes.
‘A text which readers, scholars, and historians have continued to revisit, if not for the early modern circumvoluted beauty of the sentences, then for clues about the tacit system of rules associated with the liaisons of Parisian aristocrats during the Regency and early years of Louis XV’s reign’ (Ganofsky, Marine, The Literary Encyclopedia, 2017).

Provenance: i.) Elisabeth Farnese, Queen of Spain (1692-1766), by marriage to Philip V. Described by her biographer as a ‘termagent’. ii.) Ownership inscription of J.M. Waugh, with the note in his hand: ‘Les Egaremens du Coeur se sont egarés des mains du Roi de l’Espagne entre celles de J.M. Waugh’. iii.) Another hand continues the note, ‘et ensuite entre les mains de J. Redshaw(?)’. iv.) With the bookplate of William Charles Flack in each volume.

A handsome copy in a Bozerian jeune binding of one of the few copies of Caylus’ jeu d’esprit to be printed on large paper. The frontispiece portrait, the ‘blue books’ vignette of the title page, the false imprint and the false edition statement are all part of an elaborate parody of the Bibliothèque bleue printed by Oudot in Troyes. A note on the verso of the frontispiece facetiously explains the inclusion of the portrait in a wonderful sentence rife with double meanings about counterfeit texts: ‘L’Imprimeur étant contrefait, il a jugé à propos de se faire graver, afin que son Livre ne soit pas de lui, quand il n’y sera pas’.
Another dig at the commercial success of the Oudot family is printed on the verso of the title-page, facing the preface: ‘L’attention que je me donne pour satisfaire le gré du Public, ne m’empêche point de penser à mes petits intérêts; c’est la raison pourquoi, pour satisfaire à la curiosité d’aucuns parmi les Curieux, on a tiré queuques [sic] Exemplaires sur de grand & gros papier; ça me coûte fort peu, & ça se vend un tiers de plus, c’est la maniere’.
These humorous works contain a variety of contes galantes, facetious anecdotes, short stories, little fictional vignettes, imaginary correspondence, short plays, poems and dialogues, with settings which take the reader from the fashionable east to the more disreputable parts of Paris. With the famous satirical frontispiece illustrating the printer, ‘Monsieur ou Madame Oudot’, here printed in blue. Also containing ‘Lettre Persanne d’un Monsieur de Paris, à un Gentilhomme Turc de ses Amis’ (pp. 21-28) and the reply ‘Reponse pour le Gentilhomme Turc, à la Lettre Persanne de Paris’ (pp. 28-32); ‘Dialogue en forme de Questions, sur le Mariage’ (pp. 37-45), ‘Le Ballet des Dindons’ (pp. 84-91), ‘Le Prince Bel-Esprit, & la Reine Toute-Belle’ (pp. 96-104) and the conte philosophique ‘Les Epreuves d’Amour dans les quatre Elémens, histoire nouvelle’, with its continuation (pp. 106-175). Written in collaboration with a number of Caylus’ friends, including Crébillon fils, Duclos, Vadé, Maurepas, Moncrif, Collé, Voisenon and the redoubtable bibliophile the Comtesse de Verrue. These were the key players in a literary société badine which centred around the actress and comedian Jeanne-Françoise Quinault. The society would meet for exuberant dinners during the course of which they would these tales and satirical pieces would be composed.

A rather disappointing copy of one of the scarcest of the eleven known oeuvres badines to come out of the ‘Société du Bout-du-Banc’, the literary dining society of the actress Mademoiselle Quinault. Set up in 1741, the society counted among its members Madame de Graffigny, Moncrif, Duclos, Crébillon fils, Madame du Châtelet, Marivaux, Maurepas and Voisenon. Towering above them all and dominating the society’s legendary dinners and organic compositions was the multi-talented figure of ‘Blaise’, or the Comte de Caylus. The most well-known of the group’s publications are Les Etrennes de la Saint-Jean, Les Ecosseuses ou les Œufs de Pâques (often published together) and Recueil de ces Messieurs but they were also responsible for the collaborative authorship of Le Loup Galleux, Histoire de Guilleaume, Quelques aventures curieuses et galantes des bals de bois, Cinq contes de fées, Les Manteaux, Mémoires de l’Académie des colporteurs and (probably) Le Pot-pouri. Each of the works was published separately and anonymously between 1738 and 1748, with a fictitious or, as here, non-existent imprint. Much later, they were assembled into a collection and published under Caylus’ name as Oeuvres badines, 1787, with a few minor alterations.
Les Fêtes roulantes was inspired by the occasion of the marriage of the Dauphin and Maria Josepha of Saxony on 9th February 1747 and by the celebrations that were put on throughout the capital. The first chapter, ‘Le Char de la Gloire’, compares the festivities with those of the Dauphin’s first marriage, in February 1745, to the Infanta Maria Teresa who had died in July 1746 after giving birth to their only child. Caylus manages to include a deft bit of self-promotion in the ‘one little oversight’ of the organisers of that first wedding, for not having commissioned some author to record these earlier festivities, which would have saved everyone seeing ‘some miserable authors celebrating the subject with works such as Les Bals de Bois’ - Caylus’ own work, of course, the title a play on words referring to the ‘Bal des Ifs’ (Ball of the Yew Trees) the extravagant Versailles party held during the celebrations, where the King and his friends were disguised as trimmed yew trees.
The title of the present work, ‘the rolling parties’, refers to the massive carnival floats that paraded the streets of Paris during the celebrations for the dauphin’s second marriage. Following a brief introduction, the work is divided into six sections or chapters, five ‘chariots’ and one short story, ‘Histoire de la Princesse Lacune’ (pp. 50-58). The five ‘chars de parade’ are ‘Char de la Gloire’, ‘le Char de l’Hymen’, ‘le Vaisseau de la Ville’, ‘le Char de Cerès’, ‘le Char de Bacchus’ and ‘Sixiéme Char Qui n’a pas paru; Par un Auteur qui ne paroître jamais’. The work concludes with three songs and a table of contents.
Particularly interesting is the chapter related to Bacchus’s chariot, which is represented in its entirety by punctuation and covers ten pages: eight full pages of punctuation (but for page numbers), and two part-pages. A note at the end of the chapter explains that one of their authors, charged with the description of the Bacchus float, thought he could get rid of it by sending a blank (‘a cru s'en debarasser en hous envoyant une lacune’). Angry that one of their number should take mistake a blank for nothing - ‘qui croit qu’une lacune n’est rien’ - this becomes the cue for the inclusion of the ‘Histoire de la Princesse Lacune’ (pp. 50-58).

A scarce early edition of this notorious licentious novel, attributed both the Nougaret and Restif de la Bretonne, presented as the true memoirs of an attractive young lady, one Madame de Vilfranc. It caused a considerable flurry on publication, was republished at least eight times and was widely accepted as a genuine set of memoirs. Even Voltaire was said to have been taken in by the hoax.
However, this latter statement calls into question the date of the first edition, as Voltaire died in 1778. There does appear to be some uncertainty as to when the novel first appeared. MMF states that Barbier, Gay, Mornet and Quérard all give an edition of 1776 and Delcro an edition of 1778, but they were unable to find it. I have been unable to find any trace of an earlier edition in any of the usual on-line databases, but whilst Cioranescu and MMF go for the 1779 first edition, the combined weight of Barbier, Gay, Mornet, Quérard and Delcro is hard to wave aside. Besides, there are at least two 1779 editions, not distinguished by MMF or Cioranescu, the one listed by MMF, with pp. iv, 144; 159 and the present edition (Trinity College Dublin only listed in Copac).
The novel, described as ‘assez érotique’ by Gay, has also been attributed to Restif de la Bretonne, with whom Nougaret collaborated on a number of occasions. ‘On trouve encore là un cordon de sonnette indiscret’, says Gay. The setting is amongst the merchant classes and the action takes place in Paris. In addition to the contemporary popularity of the work, it seems to have had a following in subsequent centuries, published by Lalouette-Douce in 1885, by Edmond Vairel in 1951 and translated into German in 1920 and in 1978.

A delightful illustrated set of sixteen moral tales in verse written for the use of children. The majority are cautionary tales, warning children against the bad effects of indiscretion, jealousy, anger, curiosity, obstinacy and presumption. Each of the tales is followed by an explicatory moral, also in verse, and a delightful, slightly naive, engraved plate. Alongside the cautionary tales are verse tales depicting the value of value of various virtues such as gratitude and the careful use of talents, also tales of birth and circumstance and a dialogue between a governess, her pupil and a gardener.
In his preface, the ‘editor’ discusses his interest in children’s education and the importance of combining clarity and simplicity in the text with a message that is easy for a child to remember. He adds that it is this work’s success in the early editions in France that has persuaded him to offer it to the young people of England. A second preface, by the author, warns against the fables of La Fontaine as the earliest education for young children and explains that he has created these first tales - ‘of which many more are needed’, he grants - in order to present the ‘measure of morality’ without resorting to the world of fairyland.
First published in Paris in 1781, this was a popular work in France; it was also reprinted by the Walther brothers in Dresden, 1790.

A scarce edition of Marmontel’s block-buster, published in the same year as the first edition. MMF list no less than ELEVEN Paris editions of 1777, all printed by Lacombe, with the present edition listed as the second, with its imprint clearly claiming a Paris and Lacombe publication: ‘A Paris, Chez Lacombe, Libraire, rue de Tournon, près le Luxembourg’. However, ESTC includes this edition as a piracy, ‘probably printed in Dublin’, with a false Paris address. This would account for the error on the title page, where the masculine word for volume is made feminine: ‘Tome Première / Tome Seconde’, a mistake no French printer or compositor would make.
Critic, novelist and playwright, Marmontel began life as the son of a poor tailor before coming to Paris on the advice of Voltaire to pursue a career in literature. His Contes moraux, 1755-1765, fictional tales praising philosophy and the practice of virtue, were enormously popular in France and throughout Europe, particularly in England where there were numerous translations. But it was his historical romance, Belisaire, with its plea for civil toleration of Protestants, that brought him most lasting fame and became one of the most controversial novels of its time, condemned both by the Sorbonne and the archbishop of Paris. Les Incas ou la Déstruction de l’Empire du Perou is Marmontel’s answer to the censure he received for Bélisaire. In this novel, he describes the cruelties in Spanish America and demonstrates that they are entirely the result of the religious intolerance of the invaders.

An apparently unrecorded edition of this popular work on children’s education by Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle, educational reformer, priest and founder of the Institue of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. He is celebrated by the Catholic Church as the Patron Saint of Teachers of Youth. He was also related to Claude Moët, founder of Moët & Chandon. Unpopular during his lifetime for his insistence on bridging the social divide, for devoting his life to the education of the children of artisans and the poor - and for inviting teachers to live in his house so that he could train them - La Salle’s legacy continues today with over 1000 educational centres worldwide.
The first part of his text is devoted to the body, encouraging cleanliness and good manners and warning against frowning, nose picking, knuckle-cracking and spitting. In the second part he proceeds to discuss clothes, diet and recreation, including social conventions, basic habits of honesty and the solving of disagreements. In a curious final section he lists easily confused words, such as ‘bois’ for wood and ‘bois’ for I drink.
This edition was printed by Anne-Charles-François-Bonaventure Poignant, bookseller, bookbinder, playing card and second hand clothes seller, and Chartres’ first lithographic printer. His published output includes a catechism, a Latin grammar and a Psalter, all for the use of local schoolchildren.

Extracts of some twenty works by the Abbé de Saint-Pierre, utopian, diplomat, academicien and economist, prophet of the League of Nations, best known for his Projet pour rendre la Paix perpetuelle en Europe, 1713-17. 'Some of his other schemes called for the inauguration of political, economic and demographical statistics; the establishment of an official press; the reformation of taxation by the institution of a tax graduated according to income or, as he proposed in another project, according to capital; the suppression of begging; the improvement of the judicial system; the building of roads; the creation of a system of public instruction; the vocational and professional training of children; the elimination of most of the inequalities between the sexes in matters of education; and certain advanced innovations in pedagogical method' (Palgrave III, 345).
This selection of his works, selected and edited by Pons-Augustin Alletz, includes essays on population, social welfare, hospitals, child care, finance, commerce and education. 'The works of this 'homme de bien', as he was called in his time, are rare and difficult to collect' (ibid).

The first edition of this work was published by Maradan in 1804, although it had been serialised in the Bibliothèque des Romans and parts of it had been pirated and printed in various journals. It was enormously popular and ran to several editions. A continuation was published, also by Maradan, under the title Suite des Souvenirs de Félicie, Paris 1807. With a dedication to Madame de Genlis’ brother, the original preface to the 1804 edition in which she discusses the work’s early popularity and compares it to the Souvenirs of Madame de Caylus and of Madame Necker. It also includes the fictional introduction by the editor of the works of the late eponymous author.
‘Cet ouvrage superficiel et frivole n’est fait ni pour les penseurs ni pour les philosophes, mais il plaira peut-êtreà ceux qui aiment le naturel et la variété’ (Avertissement de l’Editeur des OEuvres posthumes de madame de L***, p. 11).

A scarce epistolary novel which examines the types and nature of love through a selection of episodes narrated by an abundance of characters. Attributed to an obscure lawyer from Rouen, this is erotic fiction presented as scientific abstract, with titles, divisions and subdivisions suggesting a philosophy of love in an attempt to ennoble this loosely connected collection of licentious stories. As the title suggests, the work is divided into three parts, for the ‘three ages’ of love: when love is young, when it enters middle age and finally when it reaches decrepitud: ‘le tems où l’Amour se déclare; celui de son progrès; celui de son déclin’ (Avertissement, p. 49). After a wide-ranging preface, the introductory material begins with ‘Naissance de ce Porte-Feuille’ (pp. xiii-xxxi), signed by Le Milord Sédrei, and ‘Dessein de cet Ouvrage’, which is presented in two parts, ‘Définition de l’Amour; distinction de deux Amours, & déclaration d’Amour de chacun des deux sexes’ and ‘Division générale ou les trois âges de l’Amour’. The introduction concludes with Letter VI, M. Méabbe à M. Ozime, under the subtitle ‘Le Temple de l’Amour. Songe’, where the author of the letter is awoken from his dream by a kiss from his his mistress Rosette. The first part, ‘L’Amour dans son enfance’, begins with an illustration of the phrase ‘Les influences de l’Amour sur un coeur’, in a letter from M. d’Ormeville to a friend, in which he describes his sixteen year old lover, the daughter of a famous actress.
There appear to have been two distinct editions published by Gaspard Menippe in 1769 under the same imprint. MMF and Gay both cite an edition with pp. xxxvi, 107 and have no mention of this edition, while OCLC locates four copies of this edition and none of the other. On the traditional assumption that the longer pagination should have priority - given the ease of resetting from text rather than manuscript - that would suggest this to be the first printing. The work was later expanded by M. de Jouy and published as a continuation of his Galerie des femmes, Amsterdam [Paris], 1802.
Gay is fairly damning of this work: ‘Scènes à tiroir. Série de lettres écrit par des personnages à noms bizarres. Livre mal fait’. The names are a little bizarre, but the text is none the worse for being peopled with lovers called ‘Mademoiselle Xiphaa’, ‘ma chère Yxi’, M. de Walfonze, Fanaol and Amévine, Vimarak, Paswau and Ravoul. The latter’s exploits include scaling the walls of a convent and obtaining the keys to the dormitory, in the true tradition of Clerico-Galante fiction.

A good clean copy of this scarce game of lotto devoted to architecture and the monuments of Paris. Each of the game cards includes an illustration of a well-known Paris building, set against a colourful landscape and accompanied by a textual description. The ‘board’ is then set out on each card in a grid of numbers and blanks which is unique to each card. The instructions sheet mentions 15 jetons, which are not present here, nor in the copy in OCLC. Alongside the grid are the illustrations of three columns and two columns of text giving information about the featured building.
The monuments featured in the game are Le Palais de la Bourse, l’Hôtel des Invalides, l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts, l’Observatoire, Notre Dame de Lorette, La Porte Saint-Martin, l’Arc de Triomphe de l’Etoile, la Porte Saint-Denis, la Fontaine Richelieu, l’Embarcadère des Chemins de fer de Versailles, l’Eglise de la Madeleine, le Panthéon, le Pont du Carrousel, la Place de la Concorde, la Colonne de Juillet, le Palais de Luxembourg, le Palais du Louvre, le Corps législatif, le Palais de Justice, Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois, l’Hôtel-de-Ville, le Pont Neuf, la Colonne Vendôme and l’Ecole Militaire.

A very handsome copy of this scarce edition of Mary Wortley Montagu’s seminal travelogue, first published in 1763. The preface, by Mary Astell (1666-1731), was composed in 1724 for Montagu’s manuscript letters.
‘Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s husband was appointed ambassador to the Porte in 1716, and she accompanied him to Constantinople. During her sojourn in Turkey she recorded her observations and experiences in a journal (destroyed after her death) which provided material for her actual letters to her friends, of which only a few survive, and for the series of 52 letters which she composed a few years after her return to England. These are not actual letters, though headed and dated close to the dates of real letters. The form is partly fiction but provides the substance of her life abroad and her opinions on Turkish life and customs ‘ (Blackmer).

An epistolary account of Savary’s travels through Greece, translated into English here in the same year as the original French edition. Written in 42 letters addressed to Madame Le Monnier, Savary gives details on all aspects of modern Greece, from politics and the government of the different islands, to the customs of the natives of each island. He goes into particular detail on the islands of Crete and Rhodes. The work is accompanied by a map of ‘Part of Asia Minor and the Grecian Islands’ and a folding engraved plate depicting the ‘Plan of the Labyrinth of Cnossus from an Antique Gem’.

An attractive, unsophisticated copy of the first edition of ‘Lettre à un Amateur de la Peinture’ by Christian Ludwig von Hagedorn, one of the most important art historiographers of the Enlightenment. A diplomat and director of the royal picture collection in Dresden, Hagedorn also assembled a significant collection of paintings, which are described and offered for sale in this work. Hagedorn’s ‘Lettre’, which occupies the first twenty pages, is followed by ‘Eclaircissemens historiques’, by Franz Christoph Janneck, the Austrian painter known for his paintings of festive gatherings who was much admired by Hagedorn. Janneck provides a description of the works in Hagedorn’s private collection, along with a series of biographical sketches and anecdotal digressions about various other painters. Janneck provides a wealth of information about both greater and lesser artists: the index designates those painters represented in the collection as well as other artists discussed in the digressions. Those painters thought to feature for the first time in a volume about painting are marked with an asterisk.
The frontispiece is an etching by Pierre-Jules Hutin (ca. 1720-1763), notable for its inclusion of a female figure engaged in aesthetic debate. The engraving depicts an artist’s studio with two groups of figures deep in discussion. In the foreground is a painting of Leda and the Swan with three figures clustered around it. Standing immediately next to the painting is a woman intently discussing the painting with two male connoisseurs. The more elegant of the men is seated, the other man holds up a glass to the painting and the woman is holding either a pointer or a paint brush.

A scarce anonymous pamphlet discussing the satirical verses circulating against François Sébastien de Croix, Count von Clerfayt, Austrian field marshal and one of the Allied generals fighting against the French Revolutionary forces in the 1790s. Written in response to a query about the words of a popular song - part of which our author reproduces at the head of the first letter - the text is effectively an exoneration of Clerfayt’s military actions and character. The second letter deals more generally with the military history of Vienna, concluding with Clerfayt’s impressive stand against Charles Dumouriez: ‘on doit par conséquent le croire militaire philosophe connoissant le coeur humain, en sachant y opérer’ (p. 14).

A scarce use of ‘Cosmopolite’, a word first coined by Diogenes the Cynic (c. 412-323 BC) from the Greek words ‘kosmos’ (the world, the universe) and ‘polites’ (citizen), used in this instance to describe an author. After a brief appearance in French literature in the sixteenth century, the word ‘Cosmopolite’ had largely fallen into disuse until the middle of the eighteenth century, when there was a surge in its use, both in describing otherwise anonymous authors and in defining fictional characters. In this instance, the word is used as a marketing plot, a self-conscious identification of the author with what was at this time an edgy word, much in vogue in enlightenment circles - a badge of honour denoting tolerance and enlightenment - in order to bridge the gap between nations, as this is essentially a piece of political propoganda written to further foreign relations between the Netherlands and America. At the heart of this letter is a discussion of nationhood, liberty and the present alliances and security of Amsterdam and Holland.

A scarce survival of an anonymous attack on Madame de Charrière, claiming to be written by her as a supplement to her Lettres Neuchâteloises. In these two supposedly additional letters, Madame de Charrière is presented as being self-abnegating and in complete agreement with the contemporary criticisms of herself and her writing. ‘Oui, je l’avoue’, begins the first letter, ‘plaire, briller par l’esprit; voilà ce qui peut seul m’intéresser: aucune considération ne m’arrête’. She ‘admits’ that the Lettres de Lausanne had no moral purpose and that she knew nothing of the city, having spent less than 24 hours there. In the second letter the confessional tone of the ‘author’ goes even further: ‘I want to talk about myself a moment’, it begins, ‘I am rude on principle, contemptuous by system, bizarre by vanity... I desire only the pleasures of pride, and a restless spirit follows me everywhere’.

Isabelle de Charrière’s two major epistolary novels, Lettres Neuchâteloises, Amsterdam 1784 and Lettres écrites de Lausanne, Toulouse 1785, together with its genuine continuation, Caliste, ou la continuation des Lettres écrites de Lausanne, were outspoken attacks on Swiss society in which she argued against political corruption and aristocratic privilege in favour of moral, religious and social emancipation. It is not entirely surprising that her writings provoked such an attack as this. What is particularly interesting is the spiteful personal nature of this attack