french

First edition, one of 500 copies. A copiously-illustrated homage to the Parisian landmark. An English translation appears at the end, concluding: ‘O Moulin Rouge! Thou dost dominate Paris, France, the world. Thy sails turn forever, for the breeze that moves them is the breath of the men who come to admire thee and to adore thee, Mill of Voluptuousness, Tower of Delight, Ark of Alliance, Vessel of Caresses, Star of the Evening, House of Pleasant Weariness, Palace of Languidness, Mystic Rose also, of which each petal is a moving sail capped by a bonnet, O Carnal Vase held towards all men who approach unto love....’ You get the idea.

First edition: a survey of the city in 1860 (its buildings and infrastructure, ),with long sections on the Asile impérial de Vincennes, founded in 1855 for convalescent workers, the Maison Eugène-Napoléon, a school for poor girls set up in 1858, and the history of Paris’s theatres after Napoleon limited the number of theatres in the city to twelve, then eight.
Vicaire V, 1021.

First edition, by the journalist and champion of political reform, William Carpenter (1794–1874). ‘The following little work pretends not to the character of a history; but it will be found to embody, in consecutive order, the leading events of the late glorious revolution in France, derived from the most authentic sources, and interspersed with such remarks and reflections as they naturally call forth’ (Preface).

First edition, elephantine in ambition and appetite; 1155 pages of culinary erudition and extravagance. Penned with the same gusto that sent Edmond Dantès leaping from the Château d’If and Athos lunging for his rapier, Dumas père’s Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine is a feast in alphabetic form. Here, the humble garlic clove receives as much affection as a noble pheasant stuffed with truffles. Recipes jostle alongside meditations on oysters, memories of lavish banquets, and philosophical musings on the proper preparation of a stew. Begun in his later years with the intention of bestowing upon France a culinary monument, the dictionary reads as a dialogue between gourmand and gastronome, peppered with wit and unapologetically subjective declarations (’England has only three sauces, and two of them are mustard’). This is not a manual — it is a memoir in flavours, a patriotic act of seasoning, and a final course served by one of literature’s great lions. Bitting p.135; Cagle 171; Oberle 238; Vicaire 297.

First edition of a rare erotic novel strongly influenced by Cleland’s Fanny Hill. ‘Alongside the marquis d’Argens’s Thérèse philosophe, Margot la ravaudeuse is one of the crown jewels of what was once the ‘Enfer’ section of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. It relates the story of an attractive stocking-darner who manages to climb the social ladder and eventually retires to ‘enjoy with a few intimate friends the best that life has to offer’...’ (Sciuto, Review of Margot la ravaudeuse, by Louis-Charles Fougeret de Monbron. French Studies: A Quarterly Review, vol. 70 no. 4, 2016. The imprint is clearly false as to its date (’1800’) but may be accurate in giving ‘Hambourg’ as the place of publication: the engraved frontispiece is by the Hamburg engraver Christian Fritsch.
Fougeret de Monbron spent time in London, and paraphrased Fanny Hill (1749) which he published in French as La Fille de joye in 1751. Margot la ravadeuse as published here in the first years of the 1750s contains a number of obvious borrowings from Cleland in its explicit narrative, but in fact the author had been at work on a version of the novel before Fanny Hill appeared. He was probably writing it in 1748 when he was denounced to the authorities by a clandestine bookseller and arrested. The manuscript was seized and destroyed and had to be rewritten after his release from prison, by which time Fanny Hill was in print. His introduction to Margot reads (English translation):
‘Here at last is Margot la ravadeuse, a novel which General de la Pousse, encouraged by the corporation of harlots and their infamous henchmen would have us believe constitutes a crime against the State. The author, accused of nothing less than having attempted to undermine the authority of religion, the government and the Sovereign, and fearing that his silence was in itself an admission of guilt, he had no choice but to publish the work, leaving the question of guilt or innocence entirely in the hands of the public’ Dutel, I, A-676 (stating 12mo, incorrectly); Gay III, 34; Pia 466; Darnton, Corpus of Candestine Literature in France, 416. Langille, [Introduction to] Margot la Ravaudeuse, MHRA, 2015.

First edition, inscribed by the author, a symbolist collection, comprising ‘Le Porcher’, ‘Eurythmie’ and a final Envoi.

Francis Vielé-Griffin (pseudonym of Egbert Ludovicus Viélé, 26 May 1864 – 12 November 1937), was a French symbolist poet. He was born at Norfolk, Virginia, USA. ’In 1890 Viélé-Griffin cofounded the review Les Entretiens politiques et littéraires, in which appeared many of his essays calling for the liberation of verse from the strictures of traditional poetic form. He accomplished such liberation in his own poems through his pioneering use of vers libre (free verse). Viélé-Griffin’s work is marked by a fundamental optimism that is grounded in his delight in nature and his belief in the spiritual dimension of human life’ (Britannica).

A rather astonishing survival: the signal book of the Redoutable, a French ship captured and burnt by the British ship Prince under captain Joseph Peyton and vice admiral Thomas Broderick at the Battle of Lagos. On the 18 August 1759, the Rédoutable, as part of a French fleet intended for an invasion of Great Britain, was engaged by Peyton’s Prince off the Portuguese coast, an action that became known and the Battle of Lagos. The contemporary cover annotation on this signal and logbook dramatically explains both its provenance and condition: ‘Taken from the Rédoutable — burnt by the Prince Capt. Jos. Peyton Com. Vice Adm. Broderick’s was onboard / on the Coast of Portugal - in Augt. 1759’.

In 1759, during the Seven Years War, the ship was part of the fleet assembled at Toulon under French Admiral de la Clue which was destined to reinforce the main French fleet at Brest for the planned invasions of Great Britain. The signal book contains current orders and signals governing the fleet, which consisted of the Oriflamme, Lion, Centaure, Fantasque, Triton, Souverain, Ocean, Guerrier, Temeraire, Fier and Modeste. It details six ordres de marche or sailing formations, six ordres de bataille and one ordre de retraite, in each case a flag being illustrated to denote the formation to be adopted by the twelve ships of the fleet. These must have been copied up before, or at the time of embarkation, and they are followed by Rédoutable’s sailing specifications, with 30 different sails and two tenders. There is a also a log for August 1759, covering the days between the 4th and 14th, including the record on the order on the 8th to pursue a Neapolitan craft ‘venant de Londres chargé de bèjout [bijoux?] pour le comte des anglais’. From Tuesday 14th August, the log is blank, with the following pages ruled but never completed.

Admiral Joseph Peyton (1725–1804) was to become commander of the Mediterranean fleet and saw further service in the Battles of Ushant and Cape St Vincent. The manuscript has remained in the Peyton family by descent.

Unique artist’s book in manuscript. Les Yeux au ciel contains one of the densest concentrations of De Bournazel’s unique symbolism to date, its sixteen pages bearing a plethora of human, animal and hybrid figures (some prominent, others slyly hidden) and a vortex-like mise en page. Like several other works by this artist, it explores the boundary between the conscious and unconscious, and expresses an elastic sense of time and space. Using the unique quality of the successively-turned book page as her primary medium, De Bournazel encourages her ‘readers’ to look forwards, backwards and inwards with cut windows opening unexpected sightlines and pathways through the codex.

First edition, inscribed by the author’s father to Edmund Gosse of this posthumous novel by Toru Dutt (1856-1877), Indian poet, translator, and novelist. Dutt was born in Calcutta and received her early education there, both in Indian and European languages, under the encouragement of her mother and father (the latter a colonial administrator). ‘In 1869, when she was aged thirteen, and at a time when conservative Hindus believed that crossing the ‘black waters’ was blasphemous, the Dutt family travelled by sea to Europe. Toru and her elder sister Aru were the first Bengali girls to dare such a transgression’ (Chandani Lokugé in ODNB). Toru studied French in Nice and Paris, and English in London and Cambridge. On returning to India she continued her reading of French and British Romantics such as Hugo, Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley as well as the Brontës and Elizabeth Barrett Browning. She also began an intensive course of study in Sanskrit, while at the same time adapting her new knowledge to retell legends from the Mahabharata in English, using traditional English poetic forms. She died of consumption in 1877 at the age of just twenty-one, by which time she had written four books, of which only one, A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields (1876), was published in her lifetime.

The novel Le Journal de Mademoiselle d’Arvers, was set in Brittany, France, and was published only posthumously. ‘The manuscript, hand-copied by Govin Chunder, was sent to Clarisse Bader, who contributed a foreword, and with whose assistance it was published by Didier in Paris in 1879 and included in the Librarie Académique’. It was an ‘exciting hybrid between the nineteenth-century European gothic romance and the realist genres, and can be read as the creative experiment by a talented novice writer inspired by her reading of European literature’ (Lokugé).

For Western readers, as both a young woman and as an Indian writing in English, a great deal of the interest in Toru Dutt’s poetry was due to her familiarity with English and French literature. Edmund Gosse was an enthusiastic patron and wrote: ‘it would seem that the marvellous facilities of Toru’s mind still slumbered, when, in her thirteenth year, her father decided to take his daughters to Europe to learn English and French. To the end of her days Toru was a better French than English scholar. She loved France best, she knew its literature best, she wrote its language with more perfect elegance.’ (Ancient Ballads, xii). Worldcat lists copies at BL and University of Manitoba only outside continental Europe.

Caroline Naudet (1775-1839), one of the very few female caricaturists of her era, she was the daughter of the caricaturist Thomas-Charles Naudet. She is known as the artist of some 25 separate satirical prints c. 1817-1823. The plate depicts an older well-dressed lady sitting for an urbane looking artist. The caption reads:

‘Une dame de qualite faisant faire son portrait s'efforcait de se retrecir la bouche l'artiste s'en appercut et lui dit pour peu que madame le veuille je n'en ferait pas du tout’ (A lady of quality having her portrait done was trying to narrow her mouth. The artist noticed this and said to her, if Madam would like it, I won’t paint it at all). Benezit III, 347.

First edition of this very attractive diminutive almanac (’The Little Harverster’) for the theatre. It contains 12 plates finely printed in tints, all (except the title) portraits of male and female actors in plays then on the Paris stage. They include Mr. Le Peintre as Pothin in Le Voisin, Mr. Vernet in female dress as Isidor in Les Alsaciennes, Mr Gontier as Charvigny in Scribe and Delavigne’s Le Diplomate and Mme Carmouche (Jenny Verpré) as the eponymous La Reine de seize ans. The text includes excerpts and songs from each of the plays described.

A superb rendition of the temptations familiar to bibliophiles. A collector, seated on the library steps of a well-stocked Parisian book shop is assailed on all sides by monsters and mythical birds and animals offering books in irresistible bindings. This is a characteristic biblio-fantasy by Robida, best known for his futuristic graphic science fictions, such as Le Vingtième Siècle (1883), La Guerre au vingtième siècle (1887) and Le Vingtième siècle. La vie électrique (1890)

Dorbon-Ainé, founded by Louis Dorbon in 1900 was a major Parisian bookshop and publisher, trading in the early twentieth century from the prominent Left Bank location at 53 quai des Grands Augustins. As booksellers, Dorbon specialised in esoteric and occult literature but also published the works of authors such as Xavier Marcel Boulestin, Maurice Des Ombiaux, Claude Farrère, Camille Saint-Saëns, and René Boylesve as well as Jules Lemaître, Claude Debussy, Francis de Miomandre, and the comtesse de Noailles.

An attractive card showing a fashionable young lady browsing a portfolio of lithographs and advertising ‘Lithographie, Autographie, Taille-Douce’. The Rançon firm sold all manner of lithographic supplies, advertising them in the brochure Fabrique spéciale de produits pour la lithographie, autographie, taille-douce (1894) as well as teaching lithography.

A very finely painted devotional miniature with emblems of the Passion and Ressurection: a broken tree (with fire), a flaming heart, discard crowns, rosaries and a cross. In the background are leafy tress and a convent. In the sky is a glowing rebus and a tiny gold butterfly. The text below reads ‘Vuide [sic for ‘vide’] de tout hormis dieu fait son bonheur en ce bas lieu’, the second part of the phrase being rewritten over an erasure. The text, though not identical recalls that of Pascal’s Passion (’Oubli du monde et de tout, hormis Dieu’) — the text recalling his vision of 1654 found sewn into the lining of his coat found on his death.

First edition of a sophisticated manual for young artists, several times reprinted and translated, with first edition very scarce. The largest number of Bouvier’s sequential lessons consider the grinding and mixing of oil colours, with very detailed instructions for proportions of ingredients. The large lithograph plates are equally detailed, showing grinding tools and methods, the ideal colour box, easels, brushes and a well organised palette. Pierre-Louis Bouvier (1765–1836) was one of the most gifted miniaturists of his era. ‘Pierre Louis Bouvier studied under Fabre in Geneva and Vestier in Paris. He established himself in Geneva as a miniaturist, inventing a colour-grinding machine and publishing a Young Artists' and Amateur Painters' Handbook, which became a classic and was translated into German and English. In 1828, Bouvier took over from Reverdin as director of the Geneva École de Figure, a post he held until his death. His best-known works are his portraits of Empress Josephine (private collection), Mme de Staël, Lalime the Engraver, his Self-portrait and his portrait of The Artist's Children (Geneva) and the portrait of John Rocca (Geneva)’ (Benezit).

First edition of a confessional novel by Lemonnier (1845–1913), the Belgian writer and art critic who ‘shared the aims of the French symbolists and stimulated a revival of Belgian letters’ (Oxford Companion to French Literature), in which the female narrator writes against a male-dominated society which leaves no room for the possibility of female emancipation such that she is driven to dress as a man. 
This copy belonged to the ‘high priest of fin-de-siècle bibliophilia’ (Silverman, The New Bibliopolis, p. 14), Octave Uzanne (1851–1931).  One of only ten numbered copies printed on vergé de Hollande, it includes a unique printed presentation leaf, ‘Cet exemplaire a été imprimé spécialement pour M. Octave Uzanne’, tipped in as pp. 1–2 and inscribed ‘En fidèle souvenir mon cher Uzanne, le double homage de l’éditeur et de l’auteur.  Camille Lemonnier’. 
‘There is no more original Belgian artist than Camille Lemonnier.  A powerful and fertile writer, he represents Belgian literary activity for more than forty years, until his death in 1913, and even if he reflect the various tendencies of the French mind, and adapt himself to his surroundings, he is Flemish to the backbone in his mystico-sensual leanings, in his pious materialism, … in his Rubens-like fertility and love of colour, dash and force.  It is true that he reminds the reader of Zola, and even of Dickens; but it is above all of Rubens and Jordaens that he makes us think, because, like them, he paints his imagination in the form of ever sensitive emotions’ (Gladys Turquet-Milnes, Some modern Belgian Writers, 1916, p. 87).

First edition, first issue, complete with all subsequently censored text, including the final scene in which the heroine makes love to a partially animated transgender mannequin. Rachilde, who was to style herself as a ‘man of letters’ on her calling cards was just 24 when Monsieur Vénus, her second novel was published in Brussels. The book caused an immediate scandal and was vigorously suppressed by the Belgian and French authorities. Subsequent editions were shorn of the novel’s more shocking passages, which were conveniently attributed to Rachilde’s (probably-fictitiou)s co-author ‘Francis Talman’, whose name appeared on the title page. Some critics refused to believe that a work which frankly recounted the pursuit of sexual pleasure by a noblewoman, Raoule de Vénérande, could possibly be the work of a young woman. It remains an unsettling work, describing Raoule’s treatment of her young male lover, Silvert, who she persistently feminizes and humiliates. Silvert ultimately dies at the hands of one of Raoule’s suitor’s in a duel, and is replaced by her with a mannequin (with real hair, teeth and fingernails) who can be alternately dressed in male and female clothes.

The Belgian authorities sought to destroy as many copies of the first edition as possible, and it is accordingly a noted rarity. We can locate the following copies: BnF, Bibliothèque Jaques Doucet, Institut de France in France and Library of Congress, University of Houston, Vanderbilt University in North America, British Library and Cambridge in the UK and Kb in the Netherlands.

A rare French edition of Surr’s Splendid Misery (1801), perhaps the first in French. It is one of two French translations of 1807, the other entitled Splendeur et souffrance published by Maradan. It is not clear which was the first. Though little remembered, Surr’s several novels of fashionable British society were bestsellers in England and were much read in both France and Germany. He was born in London in c. 1770 and was educated at Christ’s Hospital before becoming a clerk at the Bank of England. Garside, Raven and Schöwerling, The English Novel 1770-1829, 1801, 64 (noting the Splendeur et souffrance edition only. Worldcat lists copies of Latimore at Bn and University of Illinois only; COPAC adds no British copies. For Splendeur et souffrance OCLC lists copies at Bn and Universities of Erfurt and Göttingen only; COPAC adds no British copies.

First edition of this rousing patriotic endorsement of French manufactures, with its invocation of the might of the king, on the eve of the Revolution. A ‘France First’ manifesto, it insists on the primacy of French metalwork, silks, and cloth — pointing out that women could demonstrate their patriotism by renouncing plain white mousseline dresses (from Eastern sources). It insists on domestic linen manufacture, which could be a source of employment for sixty thousand people and on the imposition of means-related taxation. Peddling (‘colportage’) or other unregulated trade is to be strictly forbidden. It is signed at the end ‘R..... patriote’. Worldcat: UCB, Newberry, Harvard and Toronto in North America.

First edition, with author’s signature at the end of the preface and with various small manuscript corrections, presumably editorial. An exhaustive proposal for a post-Revolutionary national bank based on property the title bears Mengin’s statement his aim: ‘Fonder l’intérêt public sur l’intérêt particulier, les concilier pour l’avantage général de tous ces citoyens, multiplier les richesses nationales, tel est l’unique but de cet ouvrage’ (‘Basing the public interest on private interest, reconciling them for the general advantage of all citizens, multiplying national wealth, such is the sole aim of this work)’. The folding tables include models for four different credit notes: Papier rouge, papier bleu, papier jaune and papier vert.