french

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  • sur l’imperfection des femmes. by ECOUTEZ LA VÉRITÉ ECOUTEZ LA VÉRITÉ ~ sur l’imperfection des femmes. [n.p., n.d., France or Low Countries, c. 1760-70s]
    A broadside catalogue of misogyny — with familiar and unfamiliar citations from Genesis, Augustine, Jonas, John Chrysostom, Gregory, Origen, Cato, Jerome, Tertullian, Plato and Pythagoras.… (more)

    A broadside catalogue of misogyny — with familiar and unfamiliar citations from Genesis, Augustine, Jonas, John Chrysostom, Gregory, Origen, Cato, Jerome, Tertullian, Plato and Pythagoras. Evidently intended as a satire it is known in more than one imprint, from France and from Ghent, but with only a small handful recorded in library collections. The Bibliothèque nationale holds two, one of which is digitised (having a woodcut, rather than typographical, headpiece).

    The sheet apparently already had a central horizontal crease when placed under the press, resulting in a blank horizontal line across the centre, portions of the affected letters arranged (without loss) above and below.

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  • Quand j’étais homme.  Cahiers d’une femme … by LEMMONNIER, Camille. LEMMONNIER, Camille. ~ Quand j’étais homme.  Cahiers d’une femme … Paris: Louis-Michaud, [1907].
    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… (more)

    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).

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  • Monsieur Vénus. Roman matérialiste. by RACHILDE [and] ‘Francis TALMAN’. RACHILDE [and] ‘Francis TALMAN’. ~ Monsieur Vénus. Roman matérialiste. Brussels: Auguste Brancart, 1884.
    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… (more)

    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.

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  • Latimore, ou le plus infortuné des hommes au sein de l’opulence et des grandeurs. Nouvelle anglaise traduite sur la 5e édition de Splendid misery, by Thom Surr, author of Georges Barnwell etc. Par Joseph Martin... by SURR, Thom[as Skinner]. SURR, Thom[as Skinner]. ~ Latimore, ou le plus infortuné des hommes au sein de l’opulence et des grandeurs. Nouvelle anglaise traduite sur la 5e édition de Splendid misery, by Thom Surr, author of Georges Barnwell etc. Par Joseph Martin... Paris: [P.N. Rougeron for] Villet ‘et à Verdun’, 1807.
    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… (more)

    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.

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  • ou Tableau du Libertinage de Paris. Avec la vie de plusieurs filles célèbres de ce siècle. by Correspondance d’Eulalie. Correspondance d’Eulalie. ~ ou Tableau du Libertinage de Paris. Avec la vie de plusieurs filles célèbres de ce siècle. ‘Londres’: Jean Nourse, 1785.
    A scandalous epistolary novel purporting to be the genuine correspondence of fashionable Parisian prostitutes, courtesans and actresses in 1782 and 1783. It is full of… (more)

    A scandalous epistolary novel purporting to be the genuine correspondence of fashionable Parisian prostitutes, courtesans and actresses in 1782 and 1783. It is full of detail on life in the theatres, on the racecourse and in the salons of the fashionable rich. There are elegant orgies, unexpected lesbian encounters, cross-dressing, petty theft and continual financial worries. This is the expanded edition (with 16 additional letters) of Lettres de Julie à Eulalie (Londres, 1784). It includes erotic and comic verses and songs.

    It was widely read and extremely popular. James Boswell owned a copy (Bibliotheca Boswelliana, 1825), p. 24, 739. The imprint is certainly false, and the BnF catalogue suggests a German origin on the basis of typography. The occasional attribution to Mirabeau is incorrect, arising from confusion of the earlier title of his novel Ma Conversion (see Kearney, History of Erotic Literature, p. 77). Gay I, 819: ‘Lettres d’une courtisanne, qui après de longs déréglements, épousa un lord anglais, et devint une femme vertueuse’. Worldcat locates three copies only (BL, BnF and Anna Amalia Library, Weimar).

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  • Les Ecosseuses: ou Les Oeufs de Pasques. by VADÉ, Jean-Joseph; Anne-Claude-Philippe comte de CAYLUS; Jeanne Baptiste d’Albert de Luynes, comtesse de VERRUE. VADÉ, Jean-Joseph; Anne-Claude-Philippe comte de CAYLUS; Jeanne Baptiste d’Albert de Luynes, comtesse de VERRUE. ~ Les Ecosseuses: ou Les Oeufs de Pasques. ‘Troyes’ [but Paris]: chez la Veuve Oudoy, 1745.
    First edition with the delightful woodcut frontispiece of two pea shellers, evidently cut by the comte de Caylus himself after a drawing and engraving by… (more)

    First edition with the delightful woodcut frontispiece of two pea shellers, evidently cut by the comte de Caylus himself after a drawing and engraving by Edme Bouchardon. The imprint of widow Oudoy at Troyes is considered false, and the book was probably printed in Paris. The combination of frontispiece and imprint serves to give the work a popular character (Troyes being a well-known centre of chapbook production), appropriate for a collection composed in the genre poissard reproducing contemporary street language — a collection of tales and anecdotes purporting to be told by six women (’commeres’) in a butcher’s shop. The authorship is composite, with contributions from populist Vadé and the comte de Caylus and comtesse de Verrue, members of a Parisian salon, the ‘Société du Bout-du-Banc,around the hostess Jeanne-Françoise Quinault. An edition had previously appeared in 1739, with a different pagination and without the woodcut and extra title.

    The woodcut reproduces one of Bouchardon’s wonderful series of Cris de Paris series of drawings, immortalising the ordinary people of Paris in age where so many illustrations were purely aristocratic. It is signed with initials ‘B’ and ‘C’ on either side, for Bouchardon and Caylus respectively. Barbier, 1, 359, 4695; cf. Gay II. p. 182 (Etrennes de la Saint-Jean, the collection in which it was also included).

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  • du commerce François. by AVENIR HEUREUX AVENIR HEUREUX ~ du commerce François. [France, n.p.], 1789.
    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.… (more)

    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.

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  • Plan de banque nationale immobiliaire, dédié à la nation... by [MENGIN, P. M.]. [MENGIN, P. M.]. ~ Plan de banque nationale immobiliaire, dédié à la nation... Paris: chez La Villette, Libraire... de l’Imprimerie de Momoro, [n.d., 1790].
    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… (more)

    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.

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  • Ouverture de la Pêche. by JARRY, Alfred. JARRY, Alfred. ~ Ouverture de la Pêche. Collège de Pataphysique, [1953].
    First edition, one of 276 copies in ‘vert aqueux’ wrappers (after 57 in ‘vert de Perse). The tableau Ouverture de la Pêche was written when… (more)

    First edition, one of 276 copies in ‘vert aqueux’ wrappers (after 57 in ‘vert de Perse). The tableau Ouverture de la Pêche was written when the author was 15 and later deemed by him worthy of publication by the Collège de Pataphysique. This piece of comic Jarry juvenilia sees families haste to catch the opening of the French fishing season.

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  • Gestes suivis des Paralipomènes d’Ubu. by JARRY, Alfred. JARRY, Alfred. ~ Gestes suivis des Paralipomènes d’Ubu. Paris: Simin Kra, Éditions du ‘Sagittaire’, 1920 [1921].
    First edition. One of 1040 copies, this one of 940 on Hollande. (more)

    First edition. One of 1040 copies, this one of 940 on Hollande.

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  • Makeda reine de Saba Chronique Éthiopienne traduite pour le première fois du “Gheez” en Français, d’après un manuscrit appartenant a leurs majestés les Négus d’Éthiope. by BARBIER, George, illustrator. Hughes le ROUX, translator. BARBIER, George, illustrator. Hughes le ROUX, translator. ~ Makeda reine de Saba Chronique Éthiopienne traduite pour le première fois du “Gheez” en Français, d’après un manuscrit appartenant a leurs majestés les Négus d’Éthiope. Paris: Goupil & C[ompagn]ie, Manzi, Joyant & C[ompagn]ie. 1914.
    First edition, copy number 7 of 100, of this sumptuously illustrated version of the story of the Queen of Sheba, combining illustrations by Barbier and… (more)

    First edition, copy number 7 of 100, of this sumptuously illustrated version of the story of the Queen of Sheba, combining illustrations by Barbier and the Abyssinian artist Michel Engueda-Work. French scholar, traveller and diplomat, Hughes Le Roux had transcribed parts of the Ethiopian chronicle Kebra Nagast in 1904, with the help of local scholars, from a manuscript looted by the British at Maqdala and subsequently returned. The Kebra Nagast or ‘The Glory of the Kings,’ is a fourteenth-century national epic of Ethiopia, written in Geʽez by the nebure id Ishaq of Aksum. In its existing form, the text is at least 700 years old and purports to trace the origins of the Solomonic dynasty, a line of Ethiopian Orthodox Christian monarchs who ruled the country (until 1974), to the biblical king, Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.

    The story of the text’s survival is interesting. The Battle of Maqdala, the last struggle in the British Expedition to Abyssinia, led to significant looting by the victorious British forces, who took Emperor Tewodros II’s crown along with ceremonial crosses, chalices, weapons and the holy icon Kwer’ata Re’esu along with two fine manuscripts of the Kebra Nagast which found their way to the British Museum (catalogued as Oriental MS 818 and 819 respectively). 819 was returned to Ethiopia in 1872 on the request of the Abyssinian king, who identified it as a fundamental source of law. Hugues Le Roux, a French envoy from the President of the French Republic to Menyelek II, King of Ethiopia, later went to Addis Alem in order to see this manuscript and to obtain his permission to translate it into French. He notes in his introduction here the inscription ‘This volume was returned to the King of Ethiopia by order of the Trustees of the British Museum, Dec. 14th, 1872’. Of the artist Michel Engueda-Work who is referred to elsewhere as an ‘Abyssinian artist’, almost nothing else is known, but his illustrations are of course far truer to the Ethiopian style than Barbier’s highly exoticised and eroticised interpretations, in which Sheba is portrayed (following long tradition) as a white woman.

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  • Histoire charmante de l’adolescente sucre d’amour. by SCHMIED, François-Louis, illustrator. [Joseph-Charles] MARDRUS. SCHMIED, François-Louis, illustrator. [Joseph-Charles] MARDRUS. ~ Histoire charmante de l’adolescente sucre d’amour. Paris: F. L. Schmied, 1927.
    Number 150 of 150 copies, signed by the publisher (there were also 20 additional publisher’s copies). Joseph Charles Mardrus was best known as a translator… (more)

    Number 150 of 150 copies, signed by the publisher (there were also 20 additional publisher’s copies). Joseph Charles Mardrus was best known as a translator into French of the Arabian Nights. He was born in Cairo of Armenian parents and studied in Lebanon before settling in Paris. As a doctor for the French government, he worked throughout Morocco and the Far East. Carteret IV, 263.

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  • Ulysses. by JOYCE, James. Henri MATISSE, illustrator. JOYCE, James. Henri MATISSE, illustrator. ~ Ulysses. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1935.
    Number 58 of 1500 copies, signed in pencil by Henri Matisse (a further 250 copies of the edition were additionally signed by Joyce). This is… (more)

    Number 58 of 1500 copies, signed in pencil by Henri Matisse (a further 250 copies of the edition were additionally signed by Joyce). This is the first illustrated edition of Ulysses, though Matisse chose to supply illustrations of the Calypso episodes of Homer’s Odyssey corresponding to the six episodes of the novel as his artist’s response to Joyce’s text (which, it is often said, he never finished reading). He thus confounded both the publisher, George Macy, and most of the public on its first publication. The Limited Edition Club edition owes its existence to the lifting of the American ban on the novel in December 1933. Henri Matisse, L’Oeuvre gravé, 235-240; Slocum & Cahoon, 22.

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  • De la Distribution des Maisons de Plaisance, et de la Decoration des edifices en general. by BLONDEL, Jacques-François. BLONDEL, Jacques-François. ~ De la Distribution des Maisons de Plaisance, et de la Decoration des edifices en general. Paris: [J. Chardon for] Charles-Antoine Jombert, 1737-8.
    First edition. Blondel (1705-1774) was among the most influential French architects of his day and De la Distribution des Maisons de Plaisance provides one of… (more)

    First edition. Blondel (1705-1774) was among the most influential French architects of his day and De la Distribution des Maisons de Plaisance provides one of the most extensive and best-illustrated accounts of Enlightenment taste in both houses and gardens with its many plates, elevations and plans. This copy is of the second issue, giving ‘rue Dauphine’ as the printer’s address, issued without half-titles or errata, but otherwise identical to the first issue of the same year.

    ‘As a teacher, first in his own school (1743–54) and later at the Académie Royale d’Architecture, Blondel influenced such students as the Scottish architect William (later Sir William) Chambers, best known for his Somerset House for the Royal Academy of Arts in London (1776; later replaced); the French architect Richard Mique, who did much work for Marie-Antoinette at Versailles’ (Ency. Brit.). Fowler 49.

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  • Promenade ou Itineraire des Jardins d’Ermenonville. by [GIRARDIN, Louis Stanislas Cecile Xavier, Comte de]. [GIRARDIN, Louis Stanislas Cecile Xavier, Comte de]. ~ Promenade ou Itineraire des Jardins d’Ermenonville. Paris: Mérigot père, Gattey, Guyot and Murray at Ermenonville, 1788.
    First edition of this superbly illustrated account of Girardin’s garden at Ermenonville, which was inspired both by the philosophy of Rousseau and the English landscape… (more)

    First edition of this superbly illustrated account of Girardin’s garden at Ermenonville, which was inspired both by the philosophy of Rousseau and the English landscape gardens of the eighteenth century. It was to become Rousseau’s resting place, within an elaborate tomb on an island in the Lac de peupliers. The delightful aquatint plates here depict the philosophical temple, picturesque grottoes and torrents. It as reprinted in 1811. Much of what Girardin created was destroyed in the Revolutionary era. Cohen-De Ricci 439; Hunt 695.

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  • Candide ou l’Optimisme. by VOLTAIRE, François-Marie Arouet de. Sylvain SAUVAGE, illustrator. VOLTAIRE, François-Marie Arouet de. Sylvain SAUVAGE, illustrator. ~ Candide ou l’Optimisme. Paris: [Frazier-Soye and Paul Haasen for] the artist and A. Maillart, 1928.
    One of 237 copies (number 211, one of 185 on Vélin de Montval). Sylvain Sauvage ws the pseudonym of the artist Félix Roy (1888-1948). He… (more)

    One of 237 copies (number 211, one of 185 on Vélin de Montval). Sylvain Sauvage ws the pseudonym of the artist Félix Roy (1888-1948). He later illustrated the Nonesuch edition of Candide. Worldcat lists no copies outside continental Europe.

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  • Poèmes antiques. by LECONTE DE LISLE, [Charles-Marie]. LECONTE DE LISLE, [Charles-Marie]. ~ Poèmes antiques. Paris: [Draeger frères for] Société des Amis des Livres, [30 June], 1908.
    Number 40 of 110 copies printed for the Société des Amis des Livres, this one for Baron Roger Portalis (a founder member of this bibliophilic… (more)

    Number 40 of 110 copies printed for the Société des Amis des Livres, this one for Baron Roger Portalis (a founder member of this bibliophilic circle, and an eminent historian of engraving) This is an especially elegant belle-époqe edition of the Parnassian poet Leconte de Lisle’s first collection (first published in 1852) with a sequence of highly-refined illustrations by Maurice Ray. The binding is by Georges Huser (1879-1961), who had worked for binders David, Noulhac and Lemardeley before establishing himself independently as the latter’s successor in 1903.

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  • Siegfried et le Limousin. by GIRAUDOUX, Jean. Alexandre ALEXEIEFF, illustrator. GIRAUDOUX, Jean. Alexandre ALEXEIEFF, illustrator. ~ Siegfried et le Limousin. Paris: Bernard Grasset ‘aux Aldes’, [1927].
    Number 47 of 95 copies on Hollande (after three on Vieux Japon and seven on Japon impérial) with superb illustrations by the Russian-born Montparnasse artist… (more)

    Number 47 of 95 copies on Hollande (after three on Vieux Japon and seven on Japon impérial) with superb illustrations by the Russian-born Montparnasse artist Alexeieff, who was later better known for pioneering pinscreen animation. The bold typography is accompanied by large red initials, specially cut and cast for this edition after designs by R. Van Kleen, while the striking lithographs were printed by Duchâtel and coloured at the ateliers d’Art Nervet. Giraudoux’s novel was first published in 1922 and tells the story of the French soldier who forged an unlikely career as a German lawyer following total amnesia brought on by an injury sustained fighting in the Great War. It was published in more than one illustrated edition of the 1920s, but Alexeieff’s strange, teasing and often ambiguous images are especially well suited to the text. Rare: Worldcat cites the Northwestern University copy as the only US institutional holding. No UK copies in LibraryHub.

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  • Les Liaisons Dangereuses. by ALASTAIR, illustrator. Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de LACLOS; Ernest DOWSON, translator; ALASTAIR, illustrator. Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de LACLOS; Ernest DOWSON, translator; ~ Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Paris: Black Sun Press, 1929.
    First edition with the extraordinary decadent illustrations by ‘Alastair’ (pseudonym of German-born artist Hand Venning Voight). It is one of the most attractive books of… (more)

    First edition with the extraordinary decadent illustrations by ‘Alastair’ (pseudonym of German-born artist Hand Venning Voight). It is one of the most attractive books of the Black Sun Press, founded and operated in Paris by the American expatriates Harry and Caresse Crosby. The translation from the French is Ernest Dowson’s (which had first appeared in 1898, commissioned by Leonard Smithers). This is one of 1000 copies on Moirans paper (after 15 Japon and 5 hors commerce copies). Minkoff A-31.

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  • Le Carosse aux deux lézards verts. Conte de fées. by BARBIER, George, illustrator. René BOYLESVE. BARBIER, George, illustrator. René BOYLESVE. ~ Le Carosse aux deux lézards verts. Conte de fées. Paris: [Studium for] Éditions de la Guirlande, 1921.
    First edition of Boylesve’s modern-day fairytale, with Barbier’s illustrations (the story first appeared in 1920). One of 300 copies (this one on standard paper). (more)

    First edition of Boylesve’s modern-day fairytale, with Barbier’s illustrations (the story first appeared in 1920). One of 300 copies (this one on standard paper).

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