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A handsome copy of this scarce materialist diatribe in three parts by three different authors. The first part, Le Monde, son Origine et son Antiquité is by Jean-Frédéric Bernard, an exiled French Protestant who set up as an editor and bookseller in the Netherlands, where he published a number of books on different subjects. The second part, which has its own separate title page, is in two sections, firstly De L’Ame, et de son Immortalité, also dated Londres, 1751, which is by Jean-Baptiste de Mirabaud. Concluding the volume is Essai sur la Chronologie by Jean-Baptiste Le Mascrier, which has its own register and drop-head title.
‘L’entreprise de Mirabaud parait d’une cohérence exemplaire, par sa méthode et par la fin systématique qu’elle poursuit. Elle résume un aspect essentiel de la pensée matérialiste du début du XVIIIème siècle’ (Olivier Bloch, Le Matérialisme du XVIIIème siècle et la littérature clandestine, p. 98).

A very attractive copy of a popular jestbook, first published in 1700. This new edition is advertised as being ‘augmentée de plus de double’, including a new previously unpublished part, new ‘vives gasconnades’ and several new ‘histoires galantes’, all accompanied by refexions. Apart from the mass of popular jokes, tales and so forth, gathered from street-parlance and everyday life and with no known origin, the authors and historical figures who unwittingly contributed their witty sayings to the present compilation include Thomas More, Bacon, Dante, Furetiere, Machiavelli, Rabelais, ‘le capitaine Miller’, ‘George’ and Socrates.
This work is also attributed to Cartier de Saint Philip, author of Le Je ne Sais Quoi, ou mélanges curieux, 1724, though it is not listed in his works by Cioranescu.

A delightful miniature almanach for 1826, with eight charming and wonderfully executed full-page engravings. The text comprises a collection of sentimental songs, including ‘Le Mardi Gras’, ‘L’Occasion fait le larron’, ‘La Ceinture’ and ‘Eloge de l’Eau’.

A scarce collection of works on the theme of love put together by Jean Baptiste de Saincric who was inspired to do so because of the rarity of the original publications. A Bordeaux doctor who specialised in medical hygiene and forensics, Saincric wrote widely on the medical topography of Bordeaux and its surroundings. He was a member of the Académie de Bordeaux and was twice president of the Société de Médecine de Bordeaux in 1824 and 1837. Dedicated to ‘Sophie’, this work is a book of parts, with ‘Avis de l’Editeur’, ‘Suite de la note du libraire’ and ‘Introduction’ by way of prefatory material, then the title work, ‘Le Sacrifice de l’Amour, ou la Messe de Cythere’ (pp. 17-48) and ‘Sermon prêché a Gnide, a la Cérémonie du Mai, par le berger Sylvain’ (pp. 49-63). The major part of the volume is the dictionary of amorous terms, which is taken largely from Marechal’s Dictionnaire d’Amour, 1788, with additional material from the earlier Dictionnaire de l’Amour, dans lequel on trouvera l’explication des termes les plus usité dans cette langue, 1741 by Jean-François Dreux du Radier. An index follows the dictionary.

‘The Little Dictionary of Love has become very rare; you can only find it in very few libraries. It therefore seemed urgent to offer a new edition of it, corrected and augmented. In taking on this work, we believe we are performing an essential service to the fervent lovers of Venus and of his dear son. We have not, moreover, omitted anything which might make this new Dictionary worthy of public favour. It collects together the most striking articles by berger Sylvain with a work which was published anonymously at the Hague in 1741; and we have improved it with a host of pleasant pieces, taken from the best writers’.

The second edition, following the very scarce Le Sopha couleur de roze, 1120 de l’Hégire, a Gaznah, also published in 1742. Neither Jones nor Tchemerzine had seen a copy of this earlier edition (Jones just lists the present edition as the first) but it does exist: OCLC lists copies at Cambridge, V&A, Penn, McGill and Texas.
Le Sopha is Crébillon fils’ most brilliant novel. It was enormously popular in its time, with its humour, its mild eroticism and its fashionable eastern setting, and is still entertaining today. Dozens of editions have been published from the eigtheenth century to the present. The central character was thought to have been based on Louis XV, a suspicion which was enough to enable Madame de Pompadour to have Crébillon exiled for five years. Laclos further immortalised the work by making it the favourite reading for Madame de Merteuil in his Les Liaisons dangereuses.
‘Crébillon déteste et méprise l’étroite société qu’il décrite, ses hauts personnages hypocrites, corrompus, égoïstes, méchants, inutiles, médisants, fats et quelquefois sots, il fait même passer l’expression satirique de sa haine avant l’intérêt romanesque... A part deux chapitres du Sopha qui évoquent avec lyrisme le franc et vrai plaisir d’aimer, tout le reste de l’oeuvre est pessimiste et grimaçant... à la galerie des imposteurs et des vicieux s’oppose une galerie de libertins lucides, mais aussi antipathiques, et dont aucun n’est vraiment heureux’ (Henri Coulet, Le Roman au XVIII Siècle, pp. 365-366). We can be thankful for those two chapters, which are chapter seven and the final chapter.

The very rare first edition of one of the most popular funny books of the French eighteenth century which saw at least half a dozen reprints in the eighteenth century and was reprinted by Pierre-Charles Monselet in 1881. The introductory material - introduction, épitre dédicatoire, envoi and avant-propos - describe with gusto the final stages of the work's production. Reading aloud to himself the final phrases of his work, an abbot, looking like a four-foot doll, smiles at the charm of his own work and at how popular it will be with the ladies. He preens himself happily before visiting a young countess to whom he begs leave to dedicate the work.
The work itself is a series of tales and anecdotes, romantic stories interwoven with satirical comment and brief comic interludes, very much like a modern day comedy show with improvisations and narrative serials. The titles of the various chapters give some idea as to the satirical, lively and mildly libertine nature of the work: 'le Labyrinthe', 'le faux Milord', 'le Malade Imaginaire', 'l'Actrice de Province raconte son Histoire', 'Des Boudoirs consacrés à la Volupté' and 'Des Boudoirs consacrés à l'Intérêt'.
'Cet ouvrage moral est le récit d'une partie fine, où chacun raconte son histoire. Les personnages s'appellent Persac, Sainval, le Président, la Bouquetière, la Marchande, la Danseuse, etc. C'est très gai', says Gay, adding, that Cailhava had so much success with the work that he almost immediately reissued it under the title Le Soupé, conte moral.

A scarce biography of the capucin friar Joseph Le Clerc du Tremblay (1577-1638) Richelieu’s intimate friend and advisor. Known as l’eminence grise, a nickname that has come to signify individuals excercising hidden political power, le Père Joseph was immortalised in English literature by Aldous Huxley in his Grey Eminence.
René Richard’s biography was first published under the title Histoire de la Vie du P. Joseph Le Clerc du Tremblay, capucin, in 1702 and republished anonymously here as Le Veritable Père Joseph. Curiously, Richard published a Réponse au livre intitulé Père Joseph, also in 1704, being a criticism of the present ‘anonymous’ work. It was appended to another 1704 printing of the original text under yet another title, Vie du P. Joseph Le Clerc du Tremblay, Geneva 1704. This is a scarce provincial printing from the Savoie region in the Auvergne in southern France.

An extraordinary philosophical voyage in the form of a dream sequence to the land of the Sélénites on the moon. The voyage is made by means of one of the earliest fictional aeronautical devices, a complex interplanetary flying machine which takes passengers across the hyperboric region 'à force d'x et d'y' and is flown by a specialist pilot, 'intrépide calculateur de l'infini'. In addition to their flying machines, the Sélénites have a technologically advanced society, with running water in all the houses and air conditioning in the hospitals. There is no concept of ownership, of 'mien' and 'tien', and so there is no crime. In the education of children Villeneuve has a particularly radical outlook, with all the children brought up to be ambidextrous and both sexes educated to the same extent. The Sélénites have also managed to preserve some works that have been lost on earth, including Cicero's Republic and considerable fragments from the library of Alexandria.
Hartig criticises some of Villeneuve's fictional devices as being unoriginal, such as the hero's transportation from Rome to Paris in 48 minutes, or to Japan in 16 or 17 hours, achieved by the author's being suspended in air while the earth rotates. This apparently was an idea first advanced by Fontenelle in 1686 and subsequently refuted. For all that, it is a nice conceit and, scientific accuracy apart, it makes for good fantasy. Hartig further condemns the work for its second volume, which contains only philosophical digressions, 'd'intérêt médiocre'. But Versins devotes a considerable amount of time to the work, which he hails as 'très étonnant' in many aspects, in being pre-Mercier as a utopia set in future time and in being pre-Tiphaigne de la Roche in its communications theories and in its ground-breaking introduction of the astronaut. Hartig adds that the work was severely criticised in the Journal encyclopédique, 1761. Albert Soboul, in his Utopies aux Siècle des Lumières, calls this work 'the perfect realization of the age of enlightenment' (see Lewis, p. 195).

Edmond and Jules de Goncourt’s copy of this popular French song book, elegantly printed with fabulous illustrations by Moreau. Pierre Laujon was a celebrated society host, who organised soirées and entertainments for a select few, at which his songs and ballads would be performed. His ballets, operas and verse were moderately popular and, eventually, at the advanced age of eighty, gained him his place in the Académie française. This collection contains the melodies and lyrics to 264 songs and ballads. Mostly written in a lively and humorous style, the songs celebrate love and drunkenness, birth and marriage, the follies of old age and the daily social whirl and pastimes of the ancien régime. Moreau’s illustrations are particularly evocative of Laujon’s world of aristocratic entertainment, as shown in the vignette in the second volume which depicts a magic lantern show and its enraptured audience.
This is a stunning copy from the library of the brothers Edmond de Goncourt (1822-1896) and Jules de Goncourt (1830-1870), bibliophiles, literary partners, models of bon goût and novelists, mostly remembered today for the Prix Goncourt which is probably the most important literary prize in French literature. The brothers’ passion was the literature, art and culture of the eighteenth century and their many collaborative works were based on meticulous collections of books, engravings and documents of the era. One of their principal enthusiasms was the work of Jean-Michel Moreau whose life and works the brothers wrote about extensively (including Les vignettistes, Eisen, Moreau, Paris, Dentu, 1870; L’art du dix-huitième siècle, Paris, 1880-1882).
Altogether the three volumes include three elegant engraved title-pages by Moreau (that of the first volume is used again in the second, with only the volume number changed), a frontispiece by Moreau, engraved by Launay, Simonet and Martini and three engraved head-pieces by Moreau, engraved by Duclos and Martini and three tail-pieces by Moreau, engraved by de Launay (vols 1 & 2) and by Moreau himself (vol. 3). The text itself is elegantly printed with abundant decoration, typographical ornaments and small vignettes. The third volume, which is usually found with the first two, has the title ‘Les A Propos de la Folie, ou Chancons Grotesques, Grivoises et Annonces de Parade’.

‘Les illustrations sont d’une grâce ravissante et comptent parmi les meilleures de Moreau’ (Cohen-de Ricci coll. 604).

Provenance: Jules and Edmond de Goncourt, with their bookplate, and the manuscript note ‘Une des plus delicates illustrations de Moreau’, signed ‘de Goncourt’.

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.

A very handsome copy in contemporary red morocco, possibly by Derome jeune, of two of Caylus’ most celebrated œuvres badines. These humorous works contain a variety of 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 coloured frontispiece to Les Etrennes de la Saint-Jean, illustrating the printer, ‘Monsieur ou Madame Oudot’, here printed in green. Also containing ‘Lettre Persanne d’un Monsieur de Paris, à un Gentilhomme Turc de ses Amis’ and the reply ‘Reponse pour le Gentilhomme Turc, à la Lettre Persanne de Paris’ (pp. 14-21); ‘Dialogue en forme de Questions, sur le Mariage’ (pp. 24-29), ‘Le Ballet des Dindons’ (pp. 53-56), ‘Le Prince Bel-Esprit, & la Reine Toute-Belle’ (pp. 61-65) and the conte philosophique ‘Les Epreuves d’Amour dans les quatre Elémens, histoire nouvelle’ (pp. 67-110).
Les Ecosseuses, ou les Oeufs de Pasques, intended as a sequel to Les Etrennes de la Saint-Jean but not usually found with it, has the frontispiece and part of the title printed in brown. This selection begins with the short story, ‘Le Oui & le Non, mal placés’ (pp. 13-36) and includes a number of short stories with or without dialogue, such as the ‘Histoire Veritable d’un beau Bal dansé après soupé, dans un Fauxbourg de Paris (pp. 69-74). It also includes the short comedy, ‘Le Porteur d’Iau, ou les Amours de la Ravaudeuse’ (pp. 75-142).
Both works were written in collaboration with a number of Caylus’ friends, including the redoubtable Comtesse de Verrue, Crébillon fils, Duclos, Vadé, Maurepas, Moncrif, Collé and Voisenon. 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 collectively compose these tales and jeux d'esprit.

Provenance: with the bookplate of Henry B. H. Beaufoy, whose library was sold at Christie’s on 7th July 1909 (see De Ricci, English Collectors of Books and Manuscripts, p. 181).

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 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.

An attractive copy of a scarce edition of this well known apocryphal pamphlet first published in Berlin in 1766. Written as if by the hand of Frederick II, it has frequently been attributed to Voltaire but also to Baron Patono and to Bonneville, aide de camp to Maréchal de Saxe. Quérard says that if it was not written by Frederic II, the author was 'quelque observateur malin, qui a bien saisi sa physionomie, ses habitudes, son esprit et jusqu'à son style'. It was republished frequently under numerous titles, including Soirées du roi de Prusse, Les six matinées du roi de Prusse and L'Art de régner. The editions vary in size as to the number of parts, or 'matinées' included; the present edition includes five.

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).

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.

An attractive copy of one of the dozens of reprints of Montesquieu’s seminal work, published under the same fictional Cologne imprint as the first edition of 1721. This edition includes the full 150 letters, as in the original printing, rather than the 140 included in Montesquieu’s expurgated version. Not originally intended as a novel, it spawned so many imitations in the form of novels (Lettres juives, Lettres chinoises, Lettres d’une Péruvienne etc) that even Montesquieu realised he had started a vogue: ‘My Lettres persanes taught people to write letter-novels’ (Montesquieu’s Mes Pensées: no. 1621).