James III or the Old Pretender
[BURNET, Sir Thomas.]
Le Chevalier de St. George, réhabilité dans sa qualité de Jacques III. par de nouvelles preuves. Avec la relation historique des suites de sa naissance, par Mr. Rousset, membre de l'Académie des Sciences de St. Petersbourg, &c.
"A Whitehall, de l'ancienne imprimerie du Cokpit", [?Amsterdam], 1745.
8vo (160 × 95 mm.), pp. [ii], 388. Ornamental fleuron to title. Single small wormhole to first 70 pages, affecting only one or two letters on each. Twentieth-century fine blue morocco by Adolphe Bertrand, inner gilt dentelles, bookplate of Robert de Billy. A handsome copy in a later collector's binding.
A very scarce French work with a false "Whitehall" imprint on the subject of James Stuart (variously the Old Pretender or Chevalier de St. George) recognised by the French and much of Catholic Europe as James III, rightful king of England and Scotland. This is in part a French translation of the Whig Thomas Burnet's incendiary pamphlet of 1713: Some new proofs by which it appears that the Pretender is truly James the Third which is here wrongly attributed (p.10) to the author's brother, Gilbert Burnet. A translation of that work into French first appeared in 1715 but a large part of our much enlarged 1745 edition is given over to a "Relation Historique" of the birth of James and of his claims to the British throne and is offered by the anonymous author as a work of particular contemporary interest. 1745 was the year of the failed "forty-five" rebellion of the Jacobites under James's son, Bonnie Prince Charlie. It is over double the length of the 1715 translation.
£650.00
US$1292.13*
* 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