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  • Tu mettrais l’univers entier dans ta ruelle [illustration for Les Fleurs du Mal]. by LYDIS, Mariette, illustrator. Charles BAUDELAIRE. LYDIS, Mariette, illustrator. Charles BAUDELAIRE. ~ Tu mettrais l’univers entier dans ta ruelle [illustration for Les Fleurs du Mal]. [Paris, 1928].
    One of 125 copies only of this original print from Dix Eaux-fortes pour illustrer Les Fleurs du Mal, Paris, 1928. (more)

    One of 125 copies only of this original print from Dix Eaux-fortes pour illustrer Les Fleurs du Mal, Paris, 1928.

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  • Calculateur automatique. by EUREKA. EUREKA. ~ Calculateur automatique. Paris and Marseille: Moullot fils for K.B. in Paris 1910.
    An ingenious calculator aimed at a juvenile audience. (more)

    An ingenious calculator aimed at a juvenile audience.

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  • Candeur et Bonté ou les quatre ages d’une femme. by LEGRAND, Augustin. LEGRAND, Augustin. ~ Candeur et Bonté ou les quatre ages d’une femme. Paris: chez Louis Janet … et Pelicier, 1819.
    First and only edition of this delightful illustrated gift book, describing the four ages of women and depicting them in a series of elegant hand-coloured… (more)

    First and only edition of this delightful illustrated gift book, describing the four ages of women and depicting them in a series of elegant hand-coloured plates. The dedication printed in civilité type is to the author’s wife (and mother of his children). The final 10 pages comprise a calendar for 1820 (in common with the V&A copy). Worldcat: V&A and Landesbibliothek Mecklenburg only.

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  • Grands déplaisirs à l’occasion d’un train de plaisir ou les infortunes de Polycarpe Baboulard. by [ADAM, Victor]. [ADAM, Victor]. ~ Grands déplaisirs à l’occasion d’un train de plaisir ou les infortunes de Polycarpe Baboulard. Paris: [Maulde et Renou for] A. Marcilly, [n.d., c. 1840].
    First edition, rare. M. Baboulard is something of a dandy (notably sporting tartan trousers of a type then fashionable in both Britain and France) but… (more)

    First edition, rare. M. Baboulard is something of a dandy (notably sporting tartan trousers of a type then fashionable in both Britain and France) but he also has a wife and family of seven children and a taxing job in the ministry. Grands déplaisirs à l’occasion d’un train de plaisir is a graphic satire in the mould of Daumier on the aspirations of the newly-leisured middle classes seeking recreation on the railways. Tempted by newspaper advertisments, Baboulard books a trip to Le Havre, only to be assailed by friends and family loading him parcels, packages and a pair of dogs to deliver. The trip turns out to be a holiday from hell, and Baboulard returns to Paris duly chastened. Only one of the plates is signed by Adam, though all are demonstrably his. Among his numerous lithograph collections reflecting the rise of modernity in France this must be one of the rarest and it is especially so in coloured form. Gumuchian, Livres de l’Enfance, I, p.18. Worldcat lists the Bn copy only, there is also a copy in the National Library of Scotland (probably on account of the hero’s tartan trews).

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  • Vingt poèmes de Charles Baudelaire illustrés par Neville Lytton. by (BAUDELAIRE). BULWER-LYTTON, Neville. (BAUDELAIRE). BULWER-LYTTON, Neville. ~ Vingt poèmes de Charles Baudelaire illustrés par Neville Lytton. [France], 1934.
    A spectacular and unique interpretation of Baudelaire by Neville Lytton including twenty original watercolours with illuminated borders. Each of Lytton’s images is in the visionary… (more)

    A spectacular and unique interpretation of Baudelaire by Neville Lytton including twenty original watercolours with illuminated borders. Each of Lytton’s images is in the visionary tradition ―most have an otherworldly quality, and some border on Surrealism.The twenty poems comprise: Le Calumet de la Paix - Bohémiens en voyage - La Géante - Le Cygne - La Beauté - L’Idéal - La Vie antérieure - Sisina - Un Voyage à Cythère - XVIII - A une Passante - L’Albatros - L’Ennemi - Bien loin d’ici - Une gravure fantastique - L’Amour et le Crâne - La Cloche fêlée - Le Voyage - Le Balcon - Les Bijoux.
    Most of the poems are given in two calligraphic versions, one probably written with a steel nib, the other with an oblique nib, perhaps a quill-pen. Three poems appear in only one version: La Cloche fêlée in steel nib version only and Le Balcon and Les Bijoux only in quill pen.
    Neville Bulwer-Lytton (1879-1951) was grandson of the novelists Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Rosina Doyle Wheeler and his siblings included the suffragette Constance Lytton and Emily Lutyens. He was a man of many parts: a military officer, cricketer, Olympic athlete and artist ― educated at Eton and the École des Beaux-Arts. He was also an accomplished morris dancer and played an ivory flute.
    Among several notable portraits, he painted George Bernard Shaw in papal robes (in imitation of Velazquez) and a series of fashionable women in sumptuous velvets and silks, but he is best known for the series of First World War frescoes for the Victory Hall at Balcombe, Sussex. Throughout his career he also painted watercolour miniatures, intensely detailed with a distinctive coloration ― a style entirely suitable for these Baudelaire illustrations. His first wife was Judith Blunt, daughter of Wilfrid Scawen Blunt (divorced in 1923), and he was an important member of circles of artists and connoisseurs around the turn of the 20th century. He was friendly with Sydney Cockerell, spent weekend with the Churchills, and Eddie Marsh claimed that it was meeting Lytton that inspired his love of collecting. In 1924 Lytton married Rosa Alexandrine (Sandra) Fortel of St Rambert-en-Bugey, near Lyon and settled in France, asborbing himself deeply in French artistic culture. He wrote: ‘‘I love France because I am an artist, and in this glorious country artists are considered to be sacred --- to them gratitude is shown for the renouncing of material wealth and worldly values and the adoption of a life of struggle which as a rule is only understood by a small number of contemporaries’ (‘Reasons why I love France’ in Life in Occupied France, 1942).

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  • Shakespeare’s Cotswolds [13 Scenes of Country Life painted for the Shakespeare Exhibition 1564-1964. by HUGO, Jean. HUGO, Jean. ~ Shakespeare’s Cotswolds [13 Scenes of Country Life painted for the Shakespeare Exhibition 1564-1964. London and Bradford: Lund Humphries for W. H. Smith and Son [1964].
    Sole edition, this copy signed and inscribed by the artist to Pierre Toreilles. For the Shakespeare 400 year centenary Hugo painted 13 very large panels… (more)

    Sole edition, this copy signed and inscribed by the artist to Pierre Toreilles. For the Shakespeare 400 year centenary Hugo painted 13 very large panels depicting an imagined journey of Shakespeare from Stratford to Oxford, a journey the artist apparently traced on foot. His scenes comprise: Charlecote Park, Fowlers and the Red House of Tysoe, Gentry at Compton Wyngates, Mummers on the Green, Nearing Oxford, Chipping Camden Fair, The Road to Market,The Cotswold Games, Plough and Pasture, Hawking in the Stour Valley and Meon Hill.

    ‘The French artist Jean Hugo (1894-1984) produced... a set of six canvases he painted for the Shakespeare Festival Exhibition, organised by the ballet critic Richard Buckle in Stratford-upon-Avon. Opened by Prince Phillip on 23 April 1964, the exhibition celebrated the quatercentenary of Shakespeare’s birth and aimed to portray the world of Tudor England as it may have appeared to Shakespeare... Jean Hugo was born in Paris the great-grandson of the poet and novelist Victor Hugo. He was a painter, illustrator, theatre designer and author, whose artistic career spanned the 20th century and whose work brought him into contact with many of the most influential artistic figures of the 20th century including Jean Cocteau, Pablo Picasso, Paul Elouard, Francis Poulenc, Max Jacob, Cecil Beaton and many others.’ (V&A website). Not found in JISC/Libraryhub. Worldcat lists copies at National Gallery of Canada and University of Strasbourg only.

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  • Le nouvel Ange conducteur, ou Recueil de prièrs les plus propres à inspirer de la dévotion. Nouvelle édition, revue & considérablement augmentée. by [COURET, Jacques]. [COURET, Jacques]. ~ Le nouvel Ange conducteur, ou Recueil de prièrs les plus propres à inspirer de la dévotion. Nouvelle édition, revue & considérablement augmentée. Vesoul: Jean-Baptiste Poirson, 1782.
    With a delightful contemporary heart-shaped ex libris belonging to a young girl (probably the bookplate of Marie Josephe Briot, later Bartoulot of Belfond, Franche-Comté), d.… (more)

    With a delightful contemporary heart-shaped ex libris belonging to a young girl (probably the bookplate of Marie Josephe Briot, later Bartoulot of Belfond, Franche-Comté), d. 1840) A rare Vesoul imprint of a popular prayer book first published in 1681 and reprinted widely well into the nineteenth century. The printer Poirson is not listed in the Répertoire d’imprimeurs/libraires (which lists a single Vesoul printer, Jean-Claude Bogillot, 168.-1760) though the CCFr does list a handful of ephemeral Poirson imprints of the 1790s.

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  • Le Cantique des cantiques. Traduction d’André Chouraqui. by CLOUZOT, Marianne, illustrator. CLOUZOT, Marianne, illustrator. ~ Le Cantique des cantiques. Traduction d’André Chouraqui. Paris: [Dominique Viglino for the artist, 20 November 1951].
    One of 150 copies on vélin d’Arches, inscribed by the translator. Bound by Argentine binder Alicia Mozovich with a large design to the upper cover… (more)

    One of 150 copies on vélin d’Arches, inscribed by the translator. Bound by Argentine binder Alicia Mozovich with a large design to the upper cover reflecting Clouzot’s figures. Worldcat lists no copies outside France.

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  • (NAPOLEON). ~ An Act for the more effectually detaining in Custody Napoleon Buonaparté. [London: George Eyre and Andrew Strahan], 11 April 1816.
    First editions of these two separately-issued Acts of Parliament in which the British government sought to legalise the detainment of Napoleon as a prisoner of… (more)

    First editions of these two separately-issued Acts of Parliament in which the British government sought to legalise the detainment of Napoleon as a prisoner of war on the island of St. Helena.

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  • Le Poupée bien élevée. IIe. édition. by [MALLÈS DE BEAULIEU, Jeanne Sophie, Madame]. [MALLÈS DE BEAULIEU, Jeanne Sophie, Madame]. ~ Le Poupée bien élevée. IIe. édition. Paris: [Casimir for] LeCerf and Blanchard, [n.d., c. 1820s].
    First published in 1819, Le Poupée bien élevée proved popular among children on both sides of the English Channel, with numerous editions in both French… (more)

    First published in 1819, Le Poupée bien élevée proved popular among children on both sides of the English Channel, with numerous editions in both French and English (the latter as The Well Bred Doll). Jeanne Sophie Mallès de Beaulieu (176-1825) was the author of numerous moral and entertaining stories for children including Le Robinson de douze ans (1820).

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  • The Last of the Garayes and other Poems by an Englishwoman dedicated to the British Residents at Dinan. by ‘AN ENGLISHWOMAN’. ‘AN ENGLISHWOMAN’. ~ The Last of the Garayes and other Poems by an Englishwoman dedicated to the British Residents at Dinan. Dinan: J.-B. Huart, 1868.
    Sole edition of a rare illustrated poetical collection by a so-far unidentified woman of the English community at the Breton town of Dinan. The subscribers… (more)

    Sole edition of a rare illustrated poetical collection by a so-far unidentified woman of the English community at the Breton town of Dinan. The subscribers list contains 52 names, mainly English and mainly women. The romantic plates are very accomplished but unsigned, save by the printer Mainoë at Nantes. They are captioned with excerpts from the verses. No UK copies located by JISC/COPAC. Worldcat: Columbia and Bn.

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  • Silhouettes du front, souvenirs de trente mois de guerre reproductions de quarante dessins, croquis & aquarelles... lettre-préface de M. le Maréchal Joffre, by RÉQUIN, E. Commandant. RÉQUIN, E. Commandant. ~ Silhouettes du front, souvenirs de trente mois de guerre reproductions de quarante dessins, croquis & aquarelles... lettre-préface de M. le Maréchal Joffre, Paris: Devambez, [1917].
    First edition, one of 275 copies on Hollande (after 20 on Japon) signed by the artist, additionally inscribed by him to French politician Joseph Paul-Boncour… (more)

    First edition, one of 275 copies on Hollande (after 20 on Japon) signed by the artist, additionally inscribed by him to French politician Joseph Paul-Boncour in 1927 with a pen sketch and six additional drawings, plus some of the illustrations with captions overwritten by the artist in pencil. Réquin’s collection is valuable as a record of the wide range of nationalities present in the Northern France campaigns in 1917. There are portraits of French, Belgian, British, Scots and Welsh soldiers, but also North African, Sengalese, Indian, Russian, and Turkish troops. This copy was evidently given by the artist to Paul-Boncour as a participant in the 1927 Geneva Conference on arms limitation. Réquin adds six drawings, including four satirical sketches of the Geneva Conference itself (which he probably attended as an official artist). These large sketches include portraits of some of the major participants, including the Eton and Oxford-educated British diplomat Robert Cecil, 1st Viscount Cecil of Chelwood, one of the architects of the League of Nations. JISC/Copac locates no UK copies.

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  • Notice sur la Lithographie, suivie d’un essai sur la Reliure et le blanchiment des livres et graveurs... by MAIRET, François-Ambroise. MAIRET, François-Ambroise. ~ Notice sur la Lithographie, suivie d’un essai sur la Reliure et le blanchiment des livres et graveurs... Châtillon-sur-Seine: C. Cornillac, 1824.
    Second and enlarged edition, which includes the first edition of the second part, on bookbinding (the first edition was published by the author at Dijon… (more)

    Second and enlarged edition, which includes the first edition of the second part, on bookbinding (the first edition was published by the author at Dijon in 1818). Mairet’s is one of the important early accounts of lithography with a detailed account of the processes of preparation, the application of images to the stone and of the printing itself (with a plate of a lithographic press). Despite the importance of his treatise on lithography, Mairet is best known as a binder. A native of Dijon, he established himself as a binder and paper-dealer around the year 1806, he later worked mainly as a paper manufacturer. ‘He published, among other works, an Essai sur la reliure et leblanchissement des livres [the present book] in 1824, much of which was used by Lenormand and embodied in the Roret Manuels on Binding... he is probably the greatest binder of the time in the use of classical motives, and his work has much charm and delicacy’ (Ramsden, French Bookbinders, p. 133). The Essai sur la reliure is particularly valuable as a first-hand account of contemporary methods of colouring binding materials and producing decorative effects such marbling on both paper and leather. Bigmore & Wyman II, 14 (’The new edition was printed in a far superior manner to the old one, and the plates are much better executed... Copies are now seldom met with’); Pollard, Early Bookbinding Manuals 52; Twyman Lithography 1800-1850, pp. 92-95.

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  • Moeurs et coutumes des Corses: Mémoire tiré en partie d’un grand ouvrage sur la politique, la législation et la morale des diverses nations de l’Europe. by [FEYDEL, Gabriel Victor]. [FEYDEL, Gabriel Victor]. ~ Moeurs et coutumes des Corses: Mémoire tiré en partie d’un grand ouvrage sur la politique, la législation et la morale des diverses nations de l’Europe. Paris: chez Garnery, [1798].
    First editions of two rare reports to the Directoire by a French journalist who lost his living after the Revolution and who joined a diplomatic… (more)

    First editions of two rare reports to the Directoire by a French journalist who lost his living after the Revolution and who joined a diplomatic mission to Constantinople ― before being captured by the English fleet and imprisoned for four years in Corsica. Moeurs et coutumes des Corses is a highly critical account of the Corsicans and their culture is inscribed to the author’s wife and daughter, who shared his island captivity. Feydel berates the insular character of his captors and the ‘maux affreux et presque désespérés de la nation corse’ whose only hope of salvation could be through lois simples et savantes qu’il tiendra de la force et de la sollicitude’. The frontispiece depicts Corsican brigands in characteristic capes and hoods. Moeurs et coutumes des Corses was reprinted [without the plate] in 1802. The second work is bracingly anti-British and describes England as ‘dernier ennemi de la France’.

    Carmine Starace, Bibliografia della Corsica 8300. Outside Europe, Worldcat locates the Yale copy only of Moeurs and no copies of De notre situation.

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  • Catalogue d’une superbe collection d’estampes, desseins, médailles, coquilles et autres objets rares et précieux, délaissés par le citoyen Libert de Beaumont. décédé a Lille le 14 prairial, an 6e. Dont la vente se fera en sa maison mortuaire, rue Nationale, N°. 32, le [8 Vendemaire an 7] depuis neuf heures du matin jusqu’à midi, et depuis trois heures de relevée jusqu'à six, sous la direction des citoyens Jacquez, imp. Laurent, notaire, et Dioncq, juré-vendeur. by LIBERT DE BEAUMONT, Charles-François-Joseph. LIBERT DE BEAUMONT, Charles-François-Joseph. ~ Catalogue d’une superbe collection d’estampes, desseins, médailles, coquilles et autres objets rares et précieux, délaissés par le citoyen Libert de Beaumont. décédé a Lille le 14 prairial, an 6e. Dont la vente se fera en sa maison mortuaire, rue Nationale, N°. 32, le [8 Vendemaire an 7] depuis neuf heures du matin jusqu’à midi, et depuis trois heures de relevée jusqu'à six, sous la direction des citoyens Jacquez, imp. Laurent, notaire, et Dioncq, juré-vendeur. Lille: Jacquez, [1798].
    First edition of this rare posthumous sale catalogue of the notable collection of prints amassed by the voracious Lille collector Libert de Beaumont (1742-1798) ---… (more)

    First edition of this rare posthumous sale catalogue of the notable collection of prints amassed by the voracious Lille collector Libert de Beaumont (1742-1798) --- now widely dispersed among collections around the world. Aside from master prints by the likes of Durer, Rembrandt and Callot Liber de Beaumont was an enthusiastic collector of British prints and the catalogue includes sections devoted to Bartolozzi (including numerous prints after Angelika Kauffman), Earlom, Burke, Tomkins, Smyth, Caroline Watson, Knight and many others. The sale included a fine section of medals and another of shells.

    ‘Il amassa la plus considérable collection iconographique qu'il soit permis à un particulier de posséder. Pendant plus de trente années il n’a cessé de l'accroître : nulle peine, nul sacrifice ne l’arrêtaient quand il s’agissait d'acquérir une belle pièce qu'il n’avait pas. L’on raconte encore aujourd'hui à Lille qu’il arriva un jour que pour obtenir l'oeuvre d’un maître quil désirait, il vendit une bonne et belle ferme en plein rapport; (Archives historiques et littéraires du nord de la France, 1837, p. 241).
    Lugt 5807; Getty Provenance Index F-A1186; Duplessis 2081.

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  • The adventures of Telemachus, the son of Ulysses. By the Archbishop of Cambray. Translated into English by Mr. des Maizeaux, F.R.S. by FÉNELON, François de Salignac de La Mothe. 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.
    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… (more)

    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...’

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  • Jeu du Voyageur en Europe. by (EUROPE). (EUROPE). ~ Jeu du Voyageur en Europe. Paris: chez Basset M.d d'Estampes rue St.Jacques, au coin de celle des Mathurins n°64, [1813].
    A journey through Napoleonic-era Europe as a striking large-format engraved ‘Game of Goose’. The sixty three game squares include the Imperial palace at St Petersburg,… (more)

    A journey through Napoleonic-era Europe as a striking large-format engraved ‘Game of Goose’. The sixty three game squares include the Imperial palace at St Petersburg, the cathedral at Moscow, Westminster Bridge, the Dublin Exchange, Edinburgh cathedral, several French cathedrals, the mosque of Hagia Sofia at Constantinople, concluding with the Arc de Triomphe (which was commissioned by Napoleon in 1806 and was still under construction at the time of publication) with a view of the Palais Impérial des Tulieries beyond. The arch is surmounted by the imperial eagle. The print is undated but was advertised in the Journal de l’Imprimerie in 1813. De Vinck, pag. 50, n°120.

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  • Oracula Magica Zoraoastris cum scholis Plethonis et Pselli nunc primum editi. E bibliotheca regia. Studio Johannis Opsopoei. by ZOROASTER. ZOROASTER. ~ Oracula Magica Zoraoastris cum scholis Plethonis et Pselli nunc primum editi. E bibliotheca regia. Studio Johannis Opsopoei. Paris: [Compagnie du Grand Navire], 1599.
    A Greek edition of the magical oracles of Zoroaster, which includes commentaries of Pletho and Psellus in Latin, together with a separate collection of metrical… (more)

    A Greek edition of the magical oracles of Zoroaster, which includes commentaries of Pletho and Psellus in Latin, together with a separate collection of metrical oracles, both edited by Johannes Opsopaeus (1556-1596, physician and philologist, professor of medicine at Heidelberg, whose principal literary activity related mainly to the Sibylline Oracles and Hippocrates). The two volumes, though separately bound together here, were also issued as the second and third parts of a three-volume collection, the first being of the Sybylline oracles. Both titles bear the fine woodcut Lutetian ship device of the so-called ‘Compagnie de la Grand-Navire’, which in 1599 comprised the printers Abel l’Angelier, Barthélmy Macé, Ambroise Drouart, Michel II and Laurent and Jean Sonnius (Répertoire d’imprimeurs 1265). Their individual devices can be seen on the ship’s pennants. Adams lists each volume both separately and as part of the three volume collection. Brunet V, 370. Caillet 8135. Ebert 21171. Adams O 208-209.

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  • Journal de Christine. by [SCHALBACHER, Phillip Joseph]. [SCHALBACHER, Phillip Joseph]. ~ Journal de Christine. Paris: [Lachevardière fils for] Société reproductive des bons livres, [n.d. ?1837].
    A French edition, translated from the German original by Francois Jean Philibert Aubert de Vitry. A series of dialogues addressed to young children (a boy… (more)

    A French edition, translated from the German original by Francois Jean Philibert Aubert de Vitry. A series of dialogues addressed to young children (a boy and a girl) aged four and five, emphasising all the essential virtues of parenthood. The attractive aquatint plates were probably issued with the original edition and include several delightful family scenes. The first French edition appeared in 1825 and the date of 1837 for this reprint is taken from the Princeton Cotsen catalogue. cf. Barbier, II 1010; Querard VIII 508-10.

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  • Lettres, memoires & negociations particulières du chevalier d’Éon, Ministre Plénipotentiaire de France aupres du Roi de la Grande Bretagne; Avec M. M. les Ducs de Praslin, de Nivernois, de Sainte-Foy, & Regnier de Guerchy Ambassadeur Extraordinaire, &c. &c. &c. by EON DE BEAUMONT, [Charles Geneviève Louis Auguste André Timothée] chevalier d’. EON DE BEAUMONT, [Charles Geneviève Louis Auguste André Timothée] chevalier d’. ~ Lettres, memoires & negociations particulières du chevalier d’Éon, Ministre Plénipotentiaire de France aupres du Roi de la Grande Bretagne; Avec M. M. les Ducs de Praslin, de Nivernois, de Sainte-Foy, & Regnier de Guerchy Ambassadeur Extraordinaire, &c. &c. &c. ‘A la Haye imprime chez H. Scheurler, F.Z. aux Dépens du Corps Diplomatique & se vend a Francfort chez les Frères Van Dures, a Londres chez Jaques Dixwell, dans la Ruë St. Martin’, 1764.
    Two rare works, probably both London-printed, by the Chevalier D’Eon — the French diplomat recognised as one of the first openly transgender figures in European… (more)

    Two rare works, probably both London-printed, by the Chevalier D’Eon — the French diplomat recognised as one of the first openly transgender figures in European print. The Lettres appear here in their second edition, identical to (and swiftly following) the first, but with a new preface, while the Dernières Lettres is in its rare first edition (at least one more followed).
    Following a successful military career d’Eon served Louis XV in English diplomacy and espionage from 1762, gathering defence intelligence for a projected French invasion. Living lavishly in London he alarmed the French government, who stopped his pension and sought to recall him to France. He became embroiled in a bitter row with his compatriot Claude Louis François Régnier de Guerchy (1715–1767), who he saw as an interloper on his diplomatic patch. ‘From October 1763 the dispute took a spectacular turn as d’Eon published allegations that Guerchy had tried to poison him. In March 1764, he went further still and published a selection of his diplomatic papers, which heaped ridicule on Guerchy and his allies in France’ (the present Lettres discussed by Burrows, A King’s Ransom). The dispute was an embarrassment to the French, not least because d’Eon successfully brought the matter to the English courts and because it drew attention to the chevalier’s increasingly complex personal life. It was in the wake of this affair that the chevalier went into hiding in Byfleet (Surrey), spending a year disguised as a woman and going by the name of Madame Duval. This trans experiment initiated the period in which, D’Eon lived partly as a woman and became a celebrated figure in London society.

    The Dernière lettre is a superb piece of propaganda issued on d’Eon’s behalf appearing after the comte de Guerchy’s death in 1767 and reproducing the last letter sent to him by d’Eon recounting the facts of the poisoning case together with extensive translations from English legal records of the law case as it worked its way, very publicly, through the courts.

    This copy is from the library of politician John Baker Holroyd, 1st Baron Sheffield (1735-1821, friend of Edward Gibbon). ESTC lists only the BL and UL copies of the ‘La Haye’ second edition of Lettres (and notes a separate large paper issue in a handful of copies) and the BL, Harvard and Czartoryski Library (Cracow) copies of Dernière Lettre only.

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