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Novels
Hugely influential and translated into most European languages at an early date, its presence was felt throughout the literature of the nineteenth century. In Austen’s Emma, for example, (chapter 17 of the final book) the heroine tells Knightley that Mrs. Weston, her governess, practised on her ‘Like La Baronne d’Almane or La Contesse d’Ostalis in Madame de Genlis’ Adelaide and Theodore’, implying familiarity with the work by both author and audience.
The ‘Cours de lecture’ at the end of vol. 3 is a fascinating cross-section of literature deemed suitable for children at every stage of development. It includes a number of English works: Robinson Crusoe, Lady Montague’s Letters, Macaulay’s History, Richardson’s Pamela and Charles Grandison, Shakespeare and Milton. see full details...
![MAYER, [Charles-Joseph de].](/images/user/custom_placeholder.jpg "MAYER, [Charles-Joseph de].")
A rare musically-accompanied novel, a spirited spin-off from the chivalric romance of Amadis of Gaul, in particular of Tressan’s popular version printed in 1779. The novel takes up the story of Lisvart, son of the emperor of Constantinople.
Mayer, best known for the monumental fairy-tale collection Le cabinet des fées (1785-1789) worked with Tressan in editing the Bibliothèque universelle des Romans (1775-1789) and his Avertissement to Lisvart is both an appreciation of Tressan and a patriotic reflection on the state of contemporary French literature. He writes that he hopes the publication of Lisvart is timely, since for some years, France has read nothing but translations of English and German novels, to the extent that it seems that its colours have faded under the fashion for ‘cette manière noire.’ He offers his tale then as a corrective, since the French, by nature ‘sont gais & légers’. To add to the good nature of the proceedings he adds a sequence of 12 musical interludes, by Pierre-Jean Porro (1750–1831), guitarist and popular composer of chansons. see full details...
Mayer’s massive collection contains the work of over 40 authors and a valuable bibliographical survey of at least 100 others. It includes tales by Madame d’Aulnoy, Pierre-François Godard de Beauchamps, Charles Duclos, Antoine Hamilton, Antoine Galland, Mademoiselle de La Force, Mademoiselle Leprince de Beaumont, Madame Levesque, Mademoiselle Lheritier, Madame de Lintot, Mademoiselle de Lubert, le chevalier de Mailly, Madame de Murat, Charles Perrault and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. As Marina Warner has pointed out, within this corpus of tales of magic and enchantment, female authors outnumber male authors two-to-one (From the Beast to the Blonde, 1994).
Mayer established this canon of wonder tales at the very moment when they were most threatened as a literary form. By 1789, the aristocratic salons which had given birth to this genre, were no longer to be taken for granted and tales of this type almost ceased to be published in France. Le cabinet des fées was Mayer’s attempt to preserve for posterity this remarkable corpus of popular literature.
This is also an important illustrated book, with its 120 plates engraved by Pierre-Clément Marillier (1740-1808). These plates are especially interesting for their representation of oriental themes and characters, reflecting the very strong bias within the collection (and within this genre of French literature as a whole) for texts like Galland’s translation of Mille et une nuits set in the Near- and Far East. Marillier’s illustrations certainly reinforce the tendency to depict eastern culture as both alluring but dangerous and, incidentally, furnish the first properly illustrated version of Mille et une nuits (Hensher, ‘Engraving Difference: the representation of the Oriental Other in Marillier’s illustrations to the Mille et une nuits and other contes orientaux in Le Cabinet des fées (1785-89)’, Journal for Eighteenth-Century Studies 31, September 2008). see full details...
Two French issues appeared in 1802, the year Amelia travelled to Paris at the time of the Peace of Amiens, both are very rare, ours perhaps otherwise unrecorded. OCLC lists 2 copies of the other translation (by Mlle L.-M.-J.-M. Brayer-Saint-Léon, copies at Bn and University of Illinois)) and another of an unspecified version (Spanish National Library). Opie was associated with Godwin’s radical circle, which included Thomas Holcroft, Elizabeth Inchbald, Mary Wollstonecraft, Sarah Siddons, Anna Letitia Barbauld, and several French refugees. ‘The tale recounts the seduction and abandonment of a naïve young woman by an aristocratic rake, the ensuing grief and madness of her father, the later remorse of the rake, and the reconciliation of father and daughter at death. Such fictionalized social protest was popular with reformists and liberals, and Opie’s tale went through numerous editions. Fifteen years later Walter Scott told her “he had cried over it more than he ever cried over such things”’ (ODNB). see full details...
![[RICCOBONI, Marie-Jeanne.]](/photos/600/main/600.jpg "[RICCOBONI, Marie-Jeanne.]")
Quickly reprinted several times in French the novel was translated into English by Frances Brooke as Letters from Juliet Lady Catesby to her friend, Lady Henrietta Campley the following year. Set in England, the story is told through letters exchanged between Juliette and her cousin Henriette, and recounts the inexplicable abandonment of Juliette by her fiancé Lord Ossery on the eve of their wedding. Through a series of twists and subplots the reasons are revealed and the two lovers are eventually reconciled. A quintessential novel of sentiment, it is frequently compared favourably with Frances Burney’s Evelina and it played a major part in the vigorous literary exchange between French and English novelists of the eighteenth century.
Madame Riccoboni, née Laboras de Mézières, had acted with the Comédie Italienne prior to beginning her writing career with an extension and imitation of Marivaux’s Vie de Marianne (1751), followed by her first novel Lettres de Mistriss Fanni Butlerd (1756). In addition to her several novels, she made translations of English novels, including Fieldings Amelia, published in 1762. She was well regarded by Voltaire and was part of the circle attending the salons of the Baron d’Holbach, where she became acquainted with Diderot, David Garrick and David Hume. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments (also published in 1759), Adam Smith ranked her with Voltaire, Racine, Richardson, and Marivaux as ‘one of the poets and romance writers who best paint the refinements of… private and domestic affections.’ see full details...
It had first appeared as a preface to Les crimes de l’amour (1799) and sought to trace the origins and development of the modern or psychological novel from classical literature to the eighteenth-century works of Rousseau, Voltaire, De Graffigny, Marivaux and Crébillon fils and in de Sade’s own Aline et Valcourt. De Sade identifies Richardson and Fielding as the masters of the genre (‘C’est Richardson, c’est Fielding qui nous ont appris que l’étude profonde du coeur de l’homme, véritable dédale de la nature, peut seul inspirer le romancier...’) and he prefers Lewis to Radcliffe among gothic novelists. He also denies his authorship of Justine, attributed to him by contemporaries, writing ‘jamais je n’ai fait de tels ouvrages, et je n’en ferai sûrement jamais.’
Uzanne adds a bio-bibliographical preface, the latter portion providing a checklist of de Sade’s works and a critical overview of nineteenth-century studies. see full details...
Immediately translated into French, the work was issued both in 8vo (in 9 volumes) and 12mo (in 18), the latter (as in our copy) presumably intended to match the novels already printed in that format. The work, highly critical of its subject, caused a furore in Paris.
‘Upon its publication in France in 1827, Scott’s biography of the emperor became the subject of a heated debate in the French press. In a series of articles, the critic for the Journal des Débats called it the worst thing that Scott had ever written... faulting it for distorting the truth, for using bad sources, or for turning history into a novel... but crediting it for awakening French patriotism in response: “at this moment, from all sides awakes the sentiment of the national ego... I heartily thank Sir Walter for this great Service”’ (Samuels, The Spectacular Past: Popular History and the Novel in Nineteenth-century France, 2004, p. 94n). see full details...
![[BARANTE, Guillaume-Prosper Brugière].](/photos/1159/main/1159.jpg "[BARANTE, Guillaume-Prosper Brugière].")
![[DAMOURS, Louis.]](/photos/434/main/434.jpg "[DAMOURS, Louis.]")
![GENLIS, [Stéphanie Félicité Brulart, comtesse de].](/photos/1147/main/1147.jpg "GENLIS, [Stéphanie Félicité Brulart, comtesse de].")
![[GRAFFIGNY, Françoise Paule Huguet de].](/photos/1156/main/1156.jpg "[GRAFFIGNY, Françoise Paule Huguet de].")
![[JOHNSON, Samuel].](/photos/1160/main/1160.jpg "[JOHNSON, Samuel].")
![[PEACOCK, Thomas Love.]](/photos/192/main/192.jpg "[PEACOCK, Thomas Love.]")
![[SMITH, Horatio.]](/photos/318/main/318.jpg "[SMITH, Horatio.]")
![STEVENSON, R[obert] L[ouis].](/photos/354/main/354.jpg "STEVENSON, R[obert] L[ouis].")
![TRESSAN, [Louis-Élisabeth de la Vergne de, translator]. ARIOSTO, Ludvico.](/photos/1150/main/1150.jpg "TRESSAN, [Louis-Élisabeth de la Vergne de, translator]. ARIOSTO, Ludvico.")
