FÉNELON, François de Salignac de La Mothe. ~ The adventures of Telemachus, the son of Ulysses. By the Archbishop of Cambray. Translated into English by Mr. des Maizeaux, F.R.S. Rouen: printed for JJ. Besongne, Book-Seller, in Grosse Horloge’s street And Paris, for Durand nephew, Galande street, 1781.
12mo (170 × 90 mm), pp. [2], xxxi, [1], 409, [1]. Some browning and foxing towards front, including title. Contemporary mottled sheep, gilt panelled spine, red edges. Slightly rubbed, label partly lacking. A very good copy. Early ownership inscription to initial blank (partly blotted), old private stamp ‘E. Borel’ to margin of A1, bookplate of ‘Carlos Fryberg’ and inscription of Signe Fryberg to Ivan Lake, Majorca, 1943 (see below).
A very rare Rouen edition in English of Avantures de Télémaque, apparently a direct piracy of the London seventh edition by Rivington, Johnson, Newbery et al, with the same pagination and complete with the ’Discourse of epic Poetry’ by Andrew Ramsay. While the pagination is identical this is almost certainly French typography, with characteristic fleurons. Jean-Jacques Besongne is an interesting figure, from a long-established family of Rouen printers, but who was to go bankrupt later in 1784 and move to Paris where he published several polemics on the freedom of the press. A letter survives from him to Benjamin Franklin (9 March 1780) asking his assistance in liquidating his entire stock to form a French library in America. It is not known if Franklin responded. There are two issues of this edition, one giving Besogne’s name only in the imprint (ESTC T153158, copies at BL and Bayerische Staatsbibliothek only) and this one (ESTC N54940, copy at University of Florida only).
This copy contains the twentieth-century bookplate of the wartime Swedish consul in Majorca, Carl Fryberg and an additional inscription from his wife Signe to the acting British consul Ivan Lake dated 1943. At some point (it is impossible to say when) a corner of page 281 has been turned down marking the text ‘Alas! cried Telemachus, lo! the evils which war draws after it! How blind a fury possesses wretched mortals! They have but a few days to live on the earth, and those are days of sorrow; why then will they quicken the pace of death which is already so near? Why will they add so many shocking evils to the bitterness with which the Gods have crowed their span of life! Men are all brothers, and yet they tear each other in pieces...’