purest green
[CARACCIOLI, Louis Antoine de.]
Le livre à la mode.
"Verte-Feuille, de l'imprimerie du Printemps au Perroquet," [Paris]: 'L'Année nouvelle,' [1759].
16mo (153 × 95 mm.), pp. xx, 79, [1] blank. Woodcut vignette to title, printed in green ink throughout. Contemporary paste-paper covered boards, slightly rubbed and soiled. Early female inscription to verso of initial blank, later inscription of Charles Theodore Straub, Hildersheim, 1835 to recto, attractive later sepia woodcut bookplate of a cherub to front pastedown. A very good copy.
First edition of a famous bibliographical eccentricity, printed in green ink throughout. Caraccioli's text is ostensibly a polemic, suggesting that the tyranny of black ink should be swept away in favour of books printed in colours more suited to their subject. Addressing a youthful audience Caraccioli forsees a didactic funtion for such books, bringing a renewed pleasure to the task of learning, and he writes that Pascal, Descartes and Newton have had their day. While there is much semi-serious meditation on the nature of colour and its affect on the mind, one suspects a satirical intention, directed against the relentless quest for novelty in French literary society.The Preface announces a future publication in red ink, which duly appeared the following year. There are two issues of the Le livre à la mode, with slightly differing pagination and wording of the imprint. While our issue gives "printemps" the other gives "printems".
Brunet III, 1113; Cioranescu 15474 (the variant pagination).
£475.00
US$944.25*
* Given as a guide only. Based on an exchange rate of £1 = US$1.987896 for the day 5 July 2008 but liable to fluctuate.
5 July 2008