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Lachèvre's copy of this satirical compilation in verse and prose by François Gacon. The volume also contains 'Recueil des pièces du Sr. Saurin contre Sr. Rousseau', pp. [395]-531. With a folding engraved plate depicting a hearth side scene with a shoemaker's new-born baby and accompanying poem: 'Histoire Veritable et Remarquable, arrivée à l'endroit d'un nommé Roux, fils d'un Cordonnier, lequel aiant renié son Pére, le Diable en prit possession'.
Another edition of the same year, pp. 512, formed the third volume of Les Oeuvres de Sr. Rousseau, Rotterdam, 1712. It was also later published under the title 'Histoire satyrique de la vie et des ouvrages de Mr. Rousseau', Paris 1716.

Saint Simon’s celebrated Mémoires, ‘one of the most original monuments of French literature’, were principally written between 1740 and 1746 long after he went into retirement. The sparkling wit and complete freedom from restraint of the memoirs - Saint Simon allows his personal hatreds free reign and writes violently against the ‘leprosy’ of equality - make them an enjoyable read as well as being an important, if not altogether impartial, source of information.

The first two volumes contain a number of extracts from Saint-Simon’s Mémoires, which were not to be published for another couple of years. A fourth volume dealing with the reigns of Henri IV and Louis XIII was added later.

‘Tout dans cette Galerie n’est pas tiré de Saint-Simon; il est vraisemblable que Soulavie a été l’éditeur de ce recueil’ (Tchemerzine, V, p. 657).

The first French translation of the first biography of Lorenzo 'The Magnificent' (circa 1449-1492), great patron of the arts, poet, collector and founder of the great Laurentian Library. This biography, originally written in Latin by Nicolas Valori, is addressed to Pope Leo X, the son of Lorenzo de Medici. It was Leo X who, after the family's expulsion from Florence, later bought the Laurentian Library back from the monks of S. Marco and continued to enlarge it in Rome.

Provenance: Prince Starhenberg, Austrian Ambassador to Versailles 1756-1766. During his stay in France he amassed a considerable library, mostly bound in this distinctive style and surviving in very good condition today. He married a Princess de Salm, a german cousin of the Princesse de Soubisme, wife of the great book collector and friend of Louis XV.

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.

A delightful copy of this scarce French translation of Philip Falle’s historical account of the Channel Islands, translated by Le Rouge, who also supplied the folding map of the islands and commends the map by Dumaresq as ‘sans contredit la meilleur jusqu’à présent’. Born on Jersey, Falle’s An Account of the Isle of Jersey, the Greatest of those Islands that are now the only Remainder of the English Dominions in France, London, John Newton, 1694, was the printed first account of the island. Falle also supplied the description of the Channel Islands for Bishop Gibson's 1722 translation of Camden's Britannia, and in 1734 he published an enlarged version of his history of Jersey.

A delightful volume of verse psalms and hymns printed in the small city of Crema, near to Milan. An elegant production, with wide margins, the text is followed by the musical score for each of the psalms and hymns, with music by the popular composers Giuseppe Gazzaniga (1743-1818), musical director of Crema Cathedral and Stefano Pavesi (1779-1850), another local Crema composer, mainly of operas. Tadini prefaces the volume with an essay on music and poetry (pp. 3-23), printed in two columns. Poet and musician, Luigi Tadini created a centre of the arts in his beautiful Palazzo Tadini in Lovere, on the shores of Lake Iseo. It still thrives today as the Accademia Tadini, with a music school and prestigious Tadini International Music Competition.

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’.

A scarce libelle against William V, Prince of Orange (1748-1806), the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. François Bernard was a French journalist who spent a number of years in Leyden and Amsterdam, where he taught mathematics, geography and French. He became closely involved in the patriotic movement in the Netherlands and was a key member of a group of French writers including Antoine Marie Cerisier and Dumont-Pigalle, who aimed to influence the broader European community on behalf of the anti-Stadtholder faction. Bernard edited the Gazette d’Amsterdam, 1786-1787 and the revolutionary journal, De Batavier, which was published in Dutch. Although written in French, the text of this important libelle was first published in Dutch in a translation by a lawyer named Blom, as Aan zyne doorluchtige hoogheid Willem den Vyfden, Prins van Oranje, 1783. A German translation, Ehrfurchtsvoller und uneigennütziger Rath an Wilhelm, was also published in 1783.

A curious Ossian style production, with a Norwegian saga written in Italian terza rima and printed alongside the supposedly English prose original, ‘Almurka and Snivenus’. Set in early medieval Norway where the enlightened monarchs Alminda (the name has been changed to be more resonant with the Italian language) and Sniveno reign over a peaceful nation, though under the rule of Britain. One sorrowful day the King of Britain summons Sniveno, ‘come to the English court; an high reason of state requires it’ and despite the anguished entreaties of his wife, fearful of the raging seas, he submits to the order and embarks for Britain. A few days later, the vessel ‘was assailed in a dark night by a terrible storm. The ship was flinged up and down by the waves and beated at once by winds, hail, and rain. The thunder bursted in the darkness. The Master of the ship was appaled for the danger; the thunderbolt rending the clouds sended on the surge a flash of livid light. The sailors had lost their art and spirit. The vessel was plunged down almost topsyturvy and cryes and groans were heard. The whirlwind broke masts and sails; the surpassing and raged waves fluttered around the bodys of agonizing and dead men, and some of them not yet entirely drowned uttered in their throat with a dying groan the name of their fathers, children and wives’. The spirit of Snivenus assumes the form of the drowned king and returns in a dream to Almurka, who goes to the shore where she finds her husband’s corpse and promptly dies of grief. The Italian poem is clearly the original, but the florid English translation, so clearly non-native, is charming.
Alminda e Sniveno first appeared in Milan in 1818 and this second edition was first published in 1821. OCLC lists only the 1821 edition of Novella Romantica, at Bodleian and the BN. The Bodleian copy is catalogued as pp. [24], which brings the volume to the conclusion of ‘Alminda e Sniveno’, with a final Italian poem printed on the verso. In the present volume, the dates on the imprint have been altered to 1823 and a further eight pages have been added, comprising Italian poems on mainly historical themes. The second work in the volume, Pascoli’s Improvvisi, contains a selection of verse on various subjects; it was first published in 1812 (actually 1821) with slightly differing contents. The divisional title, ‘Rime Faceto-Morali’ has been stamped ‘Estemporanee’. The final work in the volume is a New Year’s poem for 1823. Although not recorded as by Pascoli, its inclusion in this volume and the similarity with his other publications, would suggest his authorship.