Le Compère Matthieu, ou Les bigarrures de l’esprit humain. by…

3 vols, 8vo (208 × 120 mm), pp. [4], 308; [2], 326; [2], 360, plus 9 engraved plates after Chasselat. Light waterstain to the extreme upper margin of the last few gatherings of vol. 3. Contemporary straight grain dark blue morocco gilt by Bozerian, jeune (signed at foot of vol. 1), Greek key inner gilt dentells, gilt edges. Spine ends slightly rubbed. Blue morocco label of the Bibliothèque Genard to vol. 1 and later bookplates of American bibliophile Frederic Robert Halsey. A handsome set.

First published in 1766 and memorably called ‘that vivacious compost of obscenity and adventure’ (Charles Whibley, 1898) Le Compère Matthieu proved to be among the most popular satirical ‘philosophical novels’ of the ancien régime. As frequently suppressed as it was republished, it makes a strong showing among confiscations tabulated in the Robert Darnton’s Corpus of Clandestine Literature in France 1769-1789. Strongly materialist, anti-establishment and anticlerical it was wrongly (if understandably) attributed to Voltaire. It continued to be published after the Revolution, but no longer surreptitiously and the present edition (often referred to as the best) is known in elegant large papier vélin copies like the present, with the rather gothic plates avant la lettre. The fine binding is by Bozerian le Jeune (Virgil François Bozerian 1765-1826) perhaps the finest and certainly the most emblematic bookbinders of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic periods, who notably produced several hundred bindings for the French Imperial Library. This copy was in the library of Claude-Auguste Genard (1819–1908) of Grenoble, then that of New York collector (and early Grolier Club member) Frederic Robert Halsey (1847-1918). The Huntington Library purchased the Halsey library en bloc in 1915, but sold many duplicates or other unwanted volumes. Cohen-De Ricci, 336: ‘Les exemplaires in-8, sur papier vélin avec les figures avant la lettre sont recherchés’.