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First edition of this anonymous translation of the third century Greek romance Aethiopica, a work highly prized in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe as perhaps the earliest prose adventure. It was admired and imitated by European authors such as Racine, Mme de Scudéry, Marin le Roy de Gomberville, Cervantes, and Aphra Behn and exercised a profound influence on the development of the European novel. This translation is sometimes ascribed to Louis-François de Fontenu. Cioranescu 29097; Quérard, La France littéraire IV, 57; Cohen/de Ricci 478; Lewine 236; Gay I, 160; Hoefer XXIII, 822.

A rare early edition of the French translation of The History of Charlotte Summers; the author’s imitation of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones (1749) and translated by Fielding’s own French translator. L’Orpheline angloise had first appeared the previous year also with a (false) Londres imprint. Rochedieu p. 109.

An attractive polyglot New Testament. Arranged in three columns of miniature type throughout, the French text is the Geneva version, the English text the Authorized version, and the Dutch text the States-General version. The engraved title is followed by the Estates General’s privilege leaf, dated 1683. This copy is from the collection of Quaker mathematician and teacher John Jackson of Warrington (1793-1875) bequeathed to the town of Warrington. British and Foreign Bible Society Library, Historical Catalogue of printed Editions of the Bible, 1450 (Polyglot), 626 (English), 3329 (Dutch), 3768 (French).

First edition in French, bearing an obviously false ‘Londres’ imprint, of History of the Origin of Medicine (London, 1778). Lettsom, the physician and Quaker philanthropist was a prolific author on medical subjects and his name is especially associated with the foundation of the Medical Society of London (as a Quaker, he was excluded from the Royal College of Physicians). Wellcome III, 508; Blake 268; Rochedieu, p. 187.

First edition in French of Baker’s popular Reflections upon Learning (1699), a work designed to display the inadequacies of human knowledge and reason and to emphasise the ultimate need for belief in revelation. It proved controversial (provoking an angry response from geologist and physician John Woodward) and was widely reprinted in England. Bacon and Descartes, the twin pillars of scientific civilisation, raised on either side of the English Channel, are closely considered, though the spirit of scientific enquiry is frequently disparaged. The work of a conservative Anglican antiquary, its reception in France is perhaps surprising. The French translation was reprinted at Amsterdam the following year. Rochedieu, p. 15.

One of numerous foreign-language editions published at this time by the British and Foreign Bible Society.This copy preserves the original British and Foreign Bible Society binding with elaborate panels stamped from a single plate.

A rare and celebrated courtly collection of amatory letters and verses. Le Pays’ post as a government official at Grenoble apparently left him ample leisure for literary composition, and this, his best-known work was much admired by the duchesse de Nemours, who became his patron. Le Pays seems to have found special favour among female readers, though the author of many of the letters here portrays himself rather as a high-class sex tourist --a curious letter from London extols the splendour of English women’s breasts and their visibility.

It was reprinted numerous times (several editions appeared in the same year). The first edition (also 1664) bears a Grenoble imprint, Gay denotes ours, with the Paris Sercy imprint, the second. Despite the number of early editions, legitimate or pirated, printed in the same year all appear rare outside France. Gay I, 99.

Inscribed by the author. Pierret was curator of the Musée Égyptien at the Louvre. His essay on the cults of the sun-god was issued in this 48-page version and in a larger, simultaneous, edition with lithograph hieroglyphic apparatus. Pierret is best-known for his Vocabulaire hiéroglyphique.

First Elzevir edition of this biography of the French protestant hero Gaspard de Coligny.

Coligny had been appointed Admiral of France in 1552 and was captured at the siege of St Quentin in 1557. In the two years of his captivity he became a convinced Calvinist and went on to lead the French Huguenots in the religious wars against Catholic dominance in France. He was implicated in the murder of Francis, Duke of Guise in February 1563, an event which was to lead ultimately to the Massacre of St Bartholomew in 1572, in which Coligny himself was killed under the direct supervision of the Duke’s son, Henry.

Coligny’s life became an inspiration to Protestants throughout Europe. It was first printed in Latin in 1575 and had previously appeared in French earlier the same year, in a quarto edtion. Willems 564 ‘ce petit volume, parfaitement exécuté, est un des plus recherché de la collection elzevirienne.’

First edition in French of Siris, a Chain of philosophical Reflections and Enquiries concerning the Virtues of Tar-water (1744) and of Berkeley’s two letters on the subject to Thomas Prior.

‘In 1744 appeared one of [Berkeley’s] most controversial works. Siris is a reconciliation of medicine with metaphysics, best known for its advocacy of the medicinal value of tar water, a native American preventative distilled from pine resins. Having conducted his own experiments Berkeley made specific claims for its beneficial effect in alleviating fevers, gout, scurvy, and dropsy. In trying to understand the cosmical principles that might explain this he conceived the possibility, which others took up with greater alacrity, that its properties might be those of a universal panacea, operating as condensed light. Siris had exceptional sales, primarily as a home medicine guide, for a few years and was translated into most western European languages, but its medical claims also provoked criticism’ (Oxford DNB).

Siris is, however, more than just a medical work and the consideration of tar-water led Berkeley into a lengthy chain of reflections on the principles of the universe and of divine providence. Blake p. 43; Wellcome II, p. 149; Rochedieu p. 23.