Monsieur Botte. by PIGAULT-LEBRUN. [Charles-Antoine-Guillaume Pigault de l’Espinoy].

12mo (182 × 100 mm), 4 vols, pp. [iv], 223, [1]; [iv], 207, [1]; [iv], 220; [iv], 236, [8] complete with half-titles, plus engraved frontispieces by G. Texier after Huot. Bookseller’s list on verso of half-titles. Uncut in original blue wrappers, printed spine labels. Spines creased, minor fraying a few trivial stains, but a very nice unsophisticated copy.

First edition. ‘... born at Calais, author of lively, licentious novels, widely read about 1800 (the favourite reading of Miss Crawley in Thackeray’s Vanity Fair)... During a riotous, dissipated youth this author returned to Calais on one occasion to find that his disgusted father had published notice of his death’ (Oxford Companion to French Literature).

Monsieur Botte was reprinted several times and seems to have found favour in 1803 adapted for the stage as M. Botte; ou, Le négociant anglais comédie en trois actes et en prose, imitée du roman de Pigault-Lebrun by Servières and Sutton de Clonard. The Critical Review describes an English edition of 1804 published by William Lane (of the Minerva Press), but if it was indeed published by Lane, we can find no trace of it in the usual catalogues.