Lettres de Ninon de l’Enclos au marquis de Sévigné. by…

Two vols in one, 12mo (166 × 95 mm), pp. xii, 184; 200, plus engraved portrait and 2 engraved titles. Slightly browned throughout, with occasional stains. Twentienth-century red three-quarter morocco, spine attractively gilt. A good copy

First edition of a bestselling epistolary novel. It purports to be a collection of letters by the famous courtesan, Anne ‘Ninon’ de Lenclos (1620-1705, friend of Boileau, La Fontaine, Racine and Molière) to Madame de Sevigné. Voltaire (and others) wrongly assumed the author to be Crébillon fils. It was frequently reprinted and translated into several European languages (including the English translation by Elizabeth Griffith, who assumed them to be genuine). Cioranescu 22167; Gay II, 828.