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First edition. A Royalist throughout the Revolution, the author spent several periods in hiding, but emerged as a prolific journalist and novelist after the fall of Robespierre, contributing to the Journal des Débats, and Journal général de France. A popular novel, making use of the the well-established manuscrit trouvé trope, Hector Berlioz recalled reading it (in a meadow) at the age of 17 (Voyage Musical, 1844). OCLC: BL only outside continental Europe, no US copies.

First edition of the marquis de Surgères’ abridgement of La Calprenède’s massive historical romance on the early history of France, first published in 12 volumes (1661-70). Following the success of his earlier abridgement of Cassandre, he reduces the text of Faramond to manageable size for a contemporary audience.

First edition. An educational epistolary novel about the life of young emigrés during the French Revolution — written the with first-hand experience of exile: Madame Genlis having lived a peripatetic life outside France since 1791. Dedicated to her grandchildren and aimed both at children and older readers, the novel opens with epigrams from Irish-born actor-playwright Arthur Murphy (‘There are three things highly pernicious to the endearments of beauty...... gaming, scandal and politics’.) and Voltaire (‘C’est être un monstre, que de ne pas aimer ceux qui ont cultivé notre ame’). A ‘Hambourg’ edition appeared in the same year, and the book was published in English as The Young Exiles, or, Correspondence of some juvenile Emigrants the following year. Cioranescu, 30621; Martin, Mylne & Frautschi, Bibliographie du genre romanesque français, 1751-1800, 98.44. Worldcat: University of Southern Mississippi

Second edition (printed in the same year as the first) of a popular historical novel set at the time of the French Wars of Religion. Gusedon served in the Napoleonic armies before producing several plays for the theatre and then devoting himself to historical fiction, which he published under the pseudonym Mortonval. This copy has been bound to match several works by Sir Walter Scott from the same library. OCLC locates copies at University of Kentucky (this edition) and Deutsche Nationalbibliothek (edition not stated) only, but there are copies of both first and second edition at Bn.

First edition of one of the bestsellers of the Directoire-era, a clandestine novel of contemporary morality, told by a female narrator. Fiévée is an interesting figure. A journalist, novelist and civil servant, his Royalist sympathies forced him into hiding in the 1790s. Freed by Napoleon, he became an intelligence agent under the Empire and was ennobled. He lived in an openly gay relationship with Théodore Leclercq until his death and the two men share the same grave at Père Lachaise. Martin, Mylne & Frautschi, Bibliographie du genre romanesque français, 1751-1800, 98.41.

First edition, dedicated to Pauline Brady, an admirer of Madame Genlis who had withdrawn to her estate outside Orléans to devote herself to the education of her children according to the author’s methods. cf. Cioranescu, 30660 (edition of 1808, in 12mo).

First edition in French of Lafontaine’s popular novel Leben eines armen Landpredigers (Berlin, 1800-1), the translation by novelist Isabelle de Montolieu. OCLC: UCLA, Princeton and Penn State only outside continental Europe.

First edition in French of Blasche’s Der Papparbeiter, oder, Anleitung in Pappe zu arbeite (1811). The 8 large folding plates depict a large array of miniature folded paper pieces: geometrical shapes, furniture and buildings. One of them is devoted to garden furniture in the oriental style, including a Chinese bridge.

Contemporary caricature portraits of the great American millionaires Carnegie, Pierpont-Morgan, Gordon-Bennett, Harjes, Frick and Depew. The drawing was probably intended for reduction and publication in an (unidentified) journal. Rouveyre (1879-1962) was immensely prolific as a caricaturist and maintained friendships and correspondence with important figures such as Apollinaire and Matisse (having met the latter as joint students of the symbolist painter Gustave Moreau).

George Woodward, affectionately dubbed ‘Mustard George’ by his contemporaries, was one of the pioneers of English caricature. Like his drinking-partner Thomas Rowlandson, Woodward absorbed high and low culture omnivorously and paid keen attention to contemporary politics.

A Political Fair is ‘a fantastic survey of the international situation’ in 1807 and is considered one of Woodward’s finest images, the print catalogue of the British Museum devoting two full pages to its complex allegories. At the heart of the fair is a large booth (‘The Best-Booth in the Fair’) representing Great Britain holding aloft on its platform images of Britannia, John Bull, together with an Irishman, Scotsman and Welsh harpist gathered convivially around a punchbowl, while a waiter sweeps into the chamber below with a vast joint of roast beef on his platter. All this was typical of Woodward’s patriotism and was intended to portray the essential unity of the nation amidst the host of clamouring figures in the neighbouring booths representing the other nations. Napoleon, in tricorn and feathers, rebuffs a disgruntled Dutchman complaining about his King with the words ‘I never change Mynheer after the goods are taken out of the Shop’. High up on the right, the American booth displays a placard advertising ‘Much ado about Nothing with the Deserter’, a reference to the friction between Britain and the United States over recent defections from British to American ships and the ban on armed British ships in American ports. The Danish booth on the left advertises ‘The English Fleet and The Devil to Pay’ in reference to the hideous bombardment of Copenhagen by the British fleet in September that year.

Musical and theatrical references abound, with many of the placards punning on the titles of plays and musical performances then showing in London: Much ado about Nothing, All’s well that ends well (Shakespeare), The Padlock (Bickerstaffe), The Deserter (Dibdin), The Double Dealer (on the Russian booth, by Congreve) and The English Fleet (Dibdin again). BM Satires, 10763

Number 10 of 250 copies. Shakespeare’s metaphysical poem on the theme of idealised and mystical love was first published in the Supplement to Robert Chester’s Love’s Martyr (1601). In it, the phoenix and the turtle dove are joined in eternal love and burn themselves alive.

A leading figure in the Nouvelle École de Paris, Léon Gischia continued to produce and exhibit avant-garde work throughout the German occupation, despite repeated denunciation for degeneracy. He also produced designs for the theatre, notably for the production in French of Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral at the théâtre du Vieux Colombier in 1945. Bland, History of Book Illustration, 321.

One of 100 copies, this example one of 65 on Whatman paper, of Uzanne’s influential edition of de Sade’s most important and enduring critical essay. It had first appeared as a preface to Les crimes de l’amour (1799) and sought to trace the origins and development of the modern or psychological novel from classical literature to the eighteenth-century works of Rousseau, Voltaire, De Graffigny, Marivaux and Crébillon fils and in de Sade’s own Aline et Valcourt. De Sade identifies Richardson and Fielding as the masters of the genre (‘C’est Richardson, c’est Fielding qui nous ont appris que l’étude profonde du coeur de l’homme, véritable dédale de la nature, peut seul inspirer le romancier...’) and he prefers Lewis to Radcliffe among gothic novelists. He also denies his authorship of Justine, attributed to him by contemporaries, writing ‘jamais je n’ai fait de tels ouvrages, et je n’en ferai sûrement jamais.’

Uzanne adds a bio-bibliographical preface, the latter portion providing a checklist of de Sade’s works and a critical overview of nineteenth-century studies.

An almanac for the year 1820. Engraved throughout with text and images. A delightful miniature almanac, which is preceded by several popular songs (‘Aux Dames’, ‘le Portraits’, ‘le Banquet’, ‘la Barque à Caron’ etc.) Though without imprint, this is characteristic of the popular miniature books produced by Marcilly. Not in Worldcat (which locates only an 1821 issue, described as in ‘128mo’). It is probable that it was issued in these two years only. Grand-Carteret 1908 (citing a copy in the collection of Georges Salomons).

First edition of a bestselling epistolary novel. It purports to be a collection of letters by the famous courtesan, Anne ‘Ninon’ de Lenclos (1620-1705, friend of Boileau, La Fontaine, Racine and Molière) to Madame de Sevigné. Voltaire (and others) wrongly assumed the author to be Crébillon fils. It was frequently reprinted and translated into several European languages (including the English translation by Elizabeth Griffith, who assumed them to be genuine). Cioranescu 22167; Gay II, 828.

First edition of this contemporary report of the sensational arrest, interrogation and trial of ‘trois Anglais’ (actually an Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman) accused of abetting the escape of the Comte de Lavalette on the eve of his execution by the restored Bourbon regime. Lavalette had been one of Napoleon’s inner circle, but had refused exile on the restoration of the monarchy and was sentenced to death. ‘On 10 January 1816 Wilson was instrumental, in conjunction with Michael Bruce and Captain John Hely-Hutchinson (later third earl of Donoughmore), in the escape from Paris of Count Lavallette, who, condemned to death, had escaped from prison by putting on his wife’s clothes. Wilson passed the barriers in a cabriolet with Lavallette disguised as a British officer and conveyed him safely to Mons. He sent a narrative of the adventure to Earl Grey (reprinted in the Gentlemans Magazine in 1816), which was intercepted. He was arrested in Paris on 13 January. The three Englishmen were tried in Paris on 2 April and sentenced on the 24th to three months’ imprisonment’ (R. H. Vetch in Oxford DNB).

A delightful edition in ‘petit format’ by Valade, who pioneered the format before it was made ubiquitous by his successor Cazin. The Londres and Liège imprints, of course, are false (Le petit format, Paris, 1878). The Contes moraux had first appeared individually in the Mercure, with a collected edition of 1761. The plates in our Valade edition are well-executed reductions of the Gravelot plates found in the first illustrated edition of 1763. Gay I, 709-10.

First edition. A rare novel for young readers, in the form of a fairy tale set in India, with a full complement of the requisite genies and magical occurrences; a preface by the ‘translator’ explains the origins of the text and tells of its discovery in Delhi in an Arabic manuscript from the library of the Grand Mogul. Saurin (1706-1781) was a dramatist and poet with a particular interest in contemporary English writing; he published translations and imitations of Pope, Thomson, Lillo, etc. He was very friendly with Helvétius, who secured him a pension which enabled him to abandon law and dedicate himself to writing.

The novel appeared in English as Mirza and Fatima in the same year. Cioranescu 59517; Gay III, 240; Dufrenoy, L’Orient Romanesque en France 1704-1789, 181.

First edition, rare. A French-language guide to the culture and rules of bull-fighting, published in the Basque city of San Sebastián (long before it was immortalised as the centre of bull fighting by Hemingway). The book is undated, but Worldcat lists other works printed by Aréas in the period 1885-1896. At least four editions followed, all undated.

First published in 1761 and also published in English in 1762. “Politique et social. Réflexions sur l’intolérance, qui est parfois nécessaire (mais dommages causés par l’émigration des protestants); les impôts, qui sont moins lourds que mal répartis; la néfaste célibat des prêtres; la nécessité des lois somptuaires, bien que ‘le luxe qui perd un petit état en enrichit un grand’; le duel, qui peut mener à la destruction de l’espèce humaine; l’exemption d’impôts des pères de famille qui favoriserait la population...” (INED).

Smith’s popular historical romance set at Glastonbury in the time of Henry VIII and the Reformation. This edition was printed for Galignani’s popular foreign language bookshop in Paris in the year following the first English edition. It was also published in French in 1827. Though printed in Paris, this copy seems to have soon found a German home: the handsome contemporary binding uses German marbled paper and beneath the pastedowns are visible sheets of printer’s waste bearing bold black-letter text. COPAC gives BL only for this edition.