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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).

An excellent copy in red morocco of this masterpiece of seventeenth-century calligraphy, from the library of the calligrapher Robert Le Fevre, whose beautiful engraved bookplate, dated 1697, is bound before the title. Pierre Moreau was a printer, engraver and calligrapher in Paris. First published in 1632 and engraved throughout, this was a very popular devotional book which ran to at least five editions. The illustrations are particularly charming: each prayer is presented inside an elaborate ornamental border comprised of tendrils, urns, flowers, fruits, grotesques, birds, cherubs and mermaids. Moreau further displays his skills in using two forms of Italian hand and several sizes of Batarde. Accompanying the text of the prayers, are extra meditational engravings with images of Christ, the Virgin and of the Seven Deadly Sins.
This copy includes two additional engraved plates pasted, perhaps by Le Fevre, to the flyleaves, one with God holding the tablets of the Ten Commandments, the other with a prayer to the Virgin Mary, both written in handsome calligraphy and enclosed within roundels. Robert Lefevre’s own engraved plate, dated 1697, an elaborate piece of work which was probably used as a business card as well as a bookplate, is bound before the title.

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).

An attractive set of a scarce chivalric romance by Charles Joseph de Mayer, mostly remembered for his impressive Cabinet des fées, a forty-one volume collection of fairy tales published between 1785 and 1789. The present novel, intended as a continuation of Tressan’s version of Amadis de Gaul, published in 1779, follows the adventures of Lisvart, the son of the Emperor of Constantinople. In keeping with Mayer’s interest in the fairy tale, Lisvart de Grèce includes plenty of fantastical sequences alongside the chivalric. In a fascinating introduction, in which Mayer talks of his involvement with Tressan in the Bibliothèque universelle des romans and discusses the state of French literature, he advises readers to start by reading Tressan’s work before moving on to his continuation, to save confusion between the different characters and generations. He suggests that this is a good time to publish the romances of chivalry, to restore a little French colour into a literature that has of late been besieged by translations from the English and the German. Following the lead of Tressan, Mayer has also attempted to update the genre to make it more accessible to a contemporary audience.
‘J’ai cru devoir imiter le Comte de Tressan... supprimer, ajouter, créer, polir, substituer, arrondir, & rapprocher un peu de nos tems & de nos mœurs la scene ancienne & le vieux théâtre; briser enfin le verre d’un tableau de lanterne magique, pour faire des tableaux vrais & les portraits ressemblans... Je devrois peut-être faire observer que le moment de mettre en lumière les Romans de Chevalerie est plus favorable qu’on ne feroit tenté de le croire. Depuis quelques années, la France ne reçoit & ne lit que des traductions de Romans Anglois, & des fictions prises dans les Auteurs Allemands: il me semble que toutes nos couleurs soient épuisées... il paroît même que les teintes légeres réussiroient; car nos passions paroissent entierement purgées de cette maniere noire qui a marqué nos Romans’ (pp. vi-x).
The novel is accompanied by a sequence of twelve songs, which accompany the text on engraved plates in which both words and musical score are given. These are composed by Pierre-Jean Porro (1750-1831), the influential composer and guitarist. Following the novel are two short stories by Mayer, Amours de Guillaume de St.- Vallier, Troubadour, (V, 255-294) and Amours de Jeanne, Reine de Jérusalem, de Naples, de Sicile, Comtesse de Provence; Roman Historique, (V, 295-330).

A ‘shop of riddles’, this scarce volume of poetry includes three hundred and thirty-seven enigmatic poems or verse riddles on subjects as diverse as the moon, the game of chess, glasses (‘nous sommes deux soeurs de même âge’), carnivals, fables, the opera and a pearl necklace. A key to the solutions is found at the back of the work.

An exceptional copy of the second edition of this classic work on garden architecture. Lavishly illustrated with 190 hand-coloured plates, this copy is remarkably preserved in the original wrappers showing the 24 original instalments. A fresh, clean copy of the deluxe coloured version of this work.

First published by Allart in Amsterdam between 1802 and 1809, this is the first real theorisation of landscape gardening in the Netherlands, written by the gardener and garden designer Gijsbert Van Laar. Inspired by the English garden, it is addressed not to the wealthy nobility but to the middle classes, for whom it provided elegant and enjoyable, but cheaper, alternatives to the complex patterns of stately grounds: ‘For what is more suitable for the hard-working Dutchman than that he should have rest from his labours in the calm retreat of his garden’. Each instalment of the ‘Storehouse of Garden Ornaments’ provides two garden plans, usually graced with ponds, and scattered with letters marking bridges, pagodas, columns and other such ornaments, all illustrated in colour in the remaining plates.

‘Van Laar’s compendium distinguishes itself [...] from [...] earlier Dutch works by an unusual request to its readers in the preface to take part in the information-gathering and design process. Each reader is invited to send his own designs of garden plans and ornaments for discussion and publication so that an open exchange of ideas on garden art might develop to the benefit of all’ (Sellers, The Romantic Landscape, p.5).

An epistolary novel by Auguste Lafontaine, set in Russia in the early eighteenth century and translated by Isabelle de Montolieu, a writer strongly influenced by the German and English literature of the time. Lafontaine’s romantic fiction had a wide readership among women throughout Europe and was enormously popular in England. Summers lists some thirty titles published in English, in some cases in more than one version, many of which, including the present novel, were printed by the Minerva Press. The present novel, first published as Fedor und Marie in 1803, was translated as Dolgorucki and Menzikoff, A Russian Tale, London, Minerva Press, 1805 (see Blakey p. 214). There was also a three volume ‘Londres’ edition of this French translation, also 1804, but Cioranescu gives precedence to this Paris edition.

Scarce first edition of these false nun’s memoirs, purportedly written by herself, but in fact penned by a cleric, Pierre Charpentier de Longchamps, member of the Académie de la Rochelle. The novel is a tale brimming with intrigue in which the misfortunes and romantic adventures of a young girl are narrated with some gusto. At the end of it all, the heroine undergoes a conversion and becomes a nun.
It was later republished under the title La soeur Adélaïde, ses égaremens et ses vertus, ses foiblesses et son repentir, ouvrage posthume du plus éloquent écrivain de ce siècle, ‘Au Paraclet’, 1785. The reference to the ‘plus éloquent écrivain de ce siècle’ on the title page was intended to pass the work off as if by Rousseau, no doubt to cash in on his saleability (see Barbier IV 508, 'on a voulu passer cet ouvrage comme etant de J.J. Rousseau').
A previous owner has made the following observation in a neat hand: ‘il est assez singulier qu’un ecclésiastique, l’abbé de Longchamps, membre de l’Académie de la Rochelle, ait composé, avec un soin complaisant, ce roman d’amour, dont quelques tableaux sont d’une grande nudité’.

The first and most famous of Brantôme’s Mémoires, this volume includes the outspoken Vies des Dames Illustres. Written after his retirement from public life in 1589, Brantôme had left instructions that his Mémoires should be published, but it was not until 1665 that this first volume appeared. Written in a frank, conversational manner, Brantôme describes his years at the centre of the glittering court and gives detailed and highly personal accounts of his contemporaries. His accounts give a highly colourful picture of court life and his descriptions of the sex lives of the ladies of the court are striking because of his ability to present graphic detail in a straightforward and almost bland style, as if he were talking about the weather.

A light-hearted sentimental novel set in diplomatic circles in Brussels and the Hague. The author, an officer in the cavalry, was a popular novelist ‘connu comme littérateur dans le genre léger où il a fait preuve d’un certain esprit’ (DLF). Desboulmiers, as he was known, also had an interest in the theatre and a broad knowledge of its history. His two most important works on theatre history, Histoire anecdotique et raisonnée du théâtre italien, Paris 1769 and Histoire du théâtre de l’Opéra-Comique, Paris 1769, are still consulted today.
This is one of three novels first published in 1766 by Desboulmiers, the others being De tout un peu ou les amusements de la campagne, Amsterdam 1766 and Honny soit qui mal y pense ou histoires de filles célebres du XVIIIe siècle, Londres 1766. This is the second of two editions of this work which appeared in the same year under the same imprint. MMF record a further three editions.