(CHAPBOOK). CODE POISSARD, ~ ou, Instruction comique et divertissante, pour s’amuser pendant le carnaval; contenant des dialogues burlesques et amusans entre les enfans de la joie; suivi du testament de Mr. l’Enflammé mort d’amour pour Mlle. Aux Yeux Doux. Paris: au Dépôt des Annas, [Delaguette. c. 1820s].

12mo (146 × 88 mm), pp. [72], plus 2 woodcut plates with contemporary hand colour. Uncut (and sometimes untidily opened) in contemporary waste-paper green wrappers. Early ownership inscription, ‘Jules Bobin’. Slightly soiled and shaken, but a good unsophisticated copy.

First edition, a carnival chapbook with burlesque dialogues. The first woodcut, as a frontispiece, depicts a cartful of fools led by a horse and pierrot, the second shows a mountebank poking fun at his audience. The term ‘Poissarde’ (literally, a fishwife) refers, in general, to coarse and vulgar language and is frequently to be found in chapbooks of the period.

Gay I, 608. Worldcat: Wisconsin only outside Europe.