Search

A rare and outlandish canard depicting a winged harpie, with the caption ‘Ce monstre afreux son corps est de la force d’un taureau / d’un an il a vingt deux pieds de longueur’.

This is a version of several contemporary ‘Peruvian monster’ prints issued as satirical allusions to Marie Antoinette, who was widely accused of accused of rapaciously squandering the royal treasury. They were inspired by a pamphlet of 1784 titled Description historique d’un monstre symbolique pris vivant sur les bords du lac Fagua près de Santa Fé par les soins de Francisco Xaveiro de Meunrios, comte de Barcelone — the pseudonym Francisco Xaveiro de Meunrios probably referring to Louis Stanislas Xavier, Count of Provence, Louis XVI’s brother. Harpie prints then appeared in considerable number (the Bibliothèque nationale holds at least thirteen, most printed in Paris, a number of which are dated to 1784) and were popular in both Paris and other French cities. Not found in WorldCat or among the similar prints in the BnF.

First edition, in an exceptionally accomplished binding. This is an account of a summer visit by students at the pre-eminent Paris school of book arts to Lille, Ostend, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels. The entire production (text, type-founding, typography, illustration, mise en page, printing, engraving, photogravure and binding) is by students named on the colophon. The named binders presumably place the book in wrappers, but the additional elegant contemporary gilt tooled binding is unsigned, though likely also an advanced student production. Among the contributors to the text is one ‘Lanoë’ who must be the noted binder Charles Lanoë who was one of the first doreurs (finishers) to study at the École Estienne. He went on to create many fine bindings in the early decades of the twentieth century,

A Caen-printed bibliothèque bleue edition of a title popular in the genre, with other editions from Paris, Tours and Lyons. The woodcut portrait was evidently old when the edition was printed, the impression showing a scatter of wormholes affecting La Belle Hélaine’s face, hair and shoulders. The text has it origins in a Middle French chanson de geste of the fourteenth century. cf. Hélot, La Bibliothèque bleue en Normandie (1928), 114 noting the degradation of the woodcut over its several issues, and this one specifically where: ‘la pauvre belle devient effrayante, avec un véritable trou à la place de l’oeil gauche’.

A popular history of the Norman crusader king who became Richard I of England. Hélot, 124.

A Caen counterfeit of a popular moral romance tale that had also appeared with an apparently genuine Paris imprint in the same year: it is a French translation of an English chapbook issued by Elizabeth Newbery, The Adventures of Master Headstrong, and Miss Patient, in their Journey towards the Land of Happiness (?1785, Roscoe J6 (4). The subtitle reads: ‘Un récit des différentes traverses qu’éprouva M. Tétu, en abandonnant Miss Patience pour écouter Miss Passion, et ne voulan pas permettre à Madame la Raison, qu’ils rencontrèrent sur leaur route, de les diriger dans leur voyage’. The much-degraded woodcut (evidently reused from stock) bears a rather garbled version of the English caption in the original: ‘The rage of Passion wille not staty [sic]; But Patience makes a wise delay’.

Thomas Frognall Dibdin was an early fan of French chapbook literature, namely the ephemeral books of the so-called Bibliothèque bleue (on account of their habitual drab blue wrappers) and he made a special study of their publishers during his bibliographical tour of Normandy. Long before chapbooks were discovered by the social historians of the twentieth century, Dibdin understood that they were the key the history and culture of the working and middling classes, shedding light on the tastes and education of boys and girls, men and women alike. Hélot, La Bibliothèque bleue en Normandie (1928) 18. Not in Rochedieu.

A life of the Northern French Saint Ortaire, abbot of Landelles (d. 580 AD). Ortaire was the object of pilgrimages to Bas-Bézier, and was invoked in the cure of various illnesses and credited with miraculous cures. The approbation is dated 1706, referring to the source work Abregé de la Vie du Bienheureux Saint Ortaire, not the present chapbook (though it appears incorrectly with this early date in various online catalogues). Frère, Manuel du bibliographe normand, II, p. 507; Hélot, 265.

Two popular literary fairy tales. L’Oranger et l’abeille appeared first in Madame d’Aulnoy’s Contes des fées (1697) while La Reine de l'Ile des fleurs is taken from Les Illustres fées (1698), sometimes attributed to Madame d’Aulnoy and sometimes to the Chevalier de Mailly. Hélot, 177. Issued as part of Chalopin’s Contes des fées series.

First edition of this very rare collection devoted to the street life of Paris, as observed by an imagined flâneur, some thirty years before Baudelaire defined the characteristics of the archetypal literary and aesthetic wanderer. The plates depict various familiar and unfamiliar aspects of Paris life — the title plate depicts the widow Lagarde, a dog and cat groomer, while other plates show browsers at a book stall in the Rue de Grès, walkers in the Luxembourg gardens, female basket carriers at la Halle, various vendors and hawker and fashionable women in the Boulevard de l’Opera. Complete sets are exceptionally rare (the British Museum catalogue lists only four of the series, for example).

Forest was a prolific caricaturist, working alongside both Grandville and Daumier for satirical journals such as La Silhouette and La Caricature. WorldCat lists only the Morgan copy (Michael Sadleir; from the library of Gordon N. Ray). Inventaire du fonds français après 1800, v. VIII, p. 101

First edition in French of Middleton’s A Dissertation Concerning the Origin of Printing in England (1734–5), which argued vigorously that Caxton had introduced the printing press to England, against the popular notion at the time that William Caxton had been preceded by a printer at Oxford. Added is a short introduction (in French) concerning Middleton. The ‘Londres’ imprint is false, and the book was almost certainly printed in Paris. The typographical headpiece is a delight. Rochedieu, 213.

Huysmans died on 12 May, 1907 after a long illness. He had dictated the text of his funeral invitation in his last days, having reportedly seen the handsome black-edged funeral notice of an acquaintance. Calling himself homme de lettres, adding his presidency of the Académie des Goncourt and membership of Légion d’Honneur, he simply states that he died ‘muni des Sacrements de l’Eglise’ (fortified by the sacraments of the church). The invitation begins with the address ‘M[onsieur]’ for the addition of a recipient’s name, but it is blank here. The souvenir card is similarly black-edged and contains short excerpts from five of Huysmans’ works: En Route, La Cathèdrale, Sainte Lydwine, L’Oblat and Les Foules de Lourdes. The funeral took place at the church of Notre-Dame-des-Champs, and Huysmans was buried in the cemetery of Montparnasse — clothed in the garb of a Benedictine monk, according to his last wishes. Banks, The Image of Huysmans, p. 205,

An attractive pocket edition of Ségur’s study of the historical condition of women in ancient and modern society (first published in 1802) with a fourth volume containing Ida Saint-Elme’s continuation (first added to Les Femmes in the edition of 1822 with the title De la Condition des femmes sous l’Empire et sous la Restauration). It contains chapters on the Empress Josephine, Princess Charlotte of Wales, Mesdames de la Lafayette, de Sévigné, du Chatelet, de Graffigny, Riccoboni, de Genlis, and de Duras. This complete edition of 1828 is rare.

First edition, rare, of these collected sermons by a French Huguenot emigré pastor in Dublin. Two significant sermons are on the subject of religious toleration, and the moral philosopher Francis Hutcheson is named among the subscribers.

The first to sermons are entitled ‘Contre l’Intolerance’ and ‘Les justes bornes de la Tolerance’. The Toleration Act had been enacted in Ireland in 1719, granting Dissenters (but not Catholics) freedom of worship and the subject of religious toleration was widely debated. Caillard argues that not only was intolerance immoral, but also irrational and imprudent. ‘It is imprudent since enforcing a set of beliefs undermines society: it leads groups to take a defensive stance against other groups, destroying public order. It is irrational since, while coercion can lead people to accept a belief outwardly, it cannot alter their inner convictions. It is immoral because coercion’s inability to change inner beliefs means it can only breed lies and hypocrisy, and because individuals have the right to self-determination. However this toleration was not to be extended to Catholics. This sermon was preached on 5th November, commemorating the failure of the Gunpowder Plot. In a later sermon, Caillard established the limits of toleration. While still endorsing the individual right to self-determination, Caillard argues there is a limitation on religious freedom: that such freedom not be harmful to religion in general or society as a whole.’ (see Toleration in 18th century Ireland, Irish Philosophy.com)

The book includes a subscriber’s list of men and women, of both Irish, French and other extraction, including Francis Hutcheson, then resident in Dublin. It is not difficult to trace a connection between Caillard’s arguments for tolerance based on circumstances and Hutcheson’s later theories of moral rights, including the right to free conscience — which were later to have a profound influence on both the French and American constitutions. Outside Europe we find copies at Illinois, Charleston and Penn only.

Headed ‘Tanhauser. 1er Acte. 1ere Scène’ this brief manuscript note describes and illustrates designs for each act of the production of Tannhäuser consistent with the infamous Paris production of March 1861.
Act I Scene 1 (for the orgiastic ballet of the Venusberg) is described in just over 5 lines as ‘Une vaste grotte souterraine éclairée par un jour fantastique, au fond tombe une cascade dont les eaux vont se perdre dans un lac bleu. A gauche apparition d’une grotte voluptueuse’. A sketch diagram shows the arrangement of two curtains and three wings. Scene 2 is described as a ‘Une belle vallée éclairée par un soleil brillant, au fond à droite le Wartburg à droite, à gauche, le Hersvelberg, à droite un chemin descendant du Wartburg, sur une éminence, une image de la vierge’, with a diagram showing the arrangement of curtain, wings and position of the Wartburg castle on the right. Overleaf the scene change for Act I, set in the Minnesingers’ Hall in the Wartburg castle is described in just over 8 lines with a diagram showing the receding perspective of the majestic hall, together with 5 lines describing the return to the valley of second scene of Act I for the final act, with changing lighting effects for dusk, night, dawn and day with clouds for the apparition of Venus.
The instructions, a brief outline sketch rather than detailed designs or instructions, follow the arrangements of the Paris version, modified from the Dresden premier of 1845, with the ballet brought forward to the very first scene to accommodate Parisian expectations. While the final design of the production was divided between three scenographers (Charles-Antoine Cambon, Édouard Desplechin and Auguste Alfred Rubé) these notes have the character of a preliminary overview, or perhaps a note for potential lighting effects. Detailed designs, maquettes and several contemporary prints exist for the production, and provide an interesting comparison for this ephemeral and unsigned note. The thumbnail sketch for Act I Scene 2 sems to confirm, for example, that it is a prior sketch rather than one made by an eyewitness to the performance, with its rather different arrangement of the rocky precipice for the Wartburg castle depicted in the plans and prints. The identity of its maker remains thus far unknown, but is likely to have been a member of one of the various workshops and teams tasked with the overall conception of this momentous performance.
Wagner’s Paris Tannhäuser ranks as one of the most infamous and most-discussed opera performances of all time ― while it was greeted with jeers and critical disdain and was cancelled after the third night it cemented Wagner’s European cult, due in large part to the essay published by an attentive member of the audience, Charle Baudelaire, who in the following days rushed his seminal critique of the performance and defence of Wagner into print as Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris.

Bernard Hoepffner (1946-2017) was a noted French translator of ‘difficult’ works in English, a major part of he European literary landscape, who counted works by Joyce, Orwell, Twain, Melville, Amis, Philip Sidney, Seamus Heaney among his many acclaimed translations. Polymathic and largely self-taught as a translator, he had trained as an architect. It was presumably during this training that he created this unique and unpublished collection of abstract designs in indian in and watercolour. Each of the 20 designs bears a title: naissance, espoir déçu, reflets d’une pensée, être agressif, être passif, un desolé, perspective, rêve, rather like a set of enigmatic tarot cards for reflection and meditation. He dedicates it ‘à Dazet, vers Jean, pour Abis’. By way of a preface he simply types ‘Pas de préface’, and as a postface he writes: ‘il ne faut pas confondre Minotaure avec Minautaure’ and gives a date of 29 April 1965’.

Hoepffner spent many years in Britain, first moving there as a young man. He worked variously a furniture restorer and smallholder, before finding his vocation as a translator. He served a president of ATLAS (Association
for the Promotion of Literary Translation) and died tragically at the age of 71, swept from rocks by the sea near his home in Pembrokeshire in 2017.

First edition, tirage de tête, one of 20 copies on japon with two suites (followed by 50 on hollande and 150 on arches, total edition 220 copies). Mariette Lydis supplied a portrait lithograph for this stylish alphabetic collection of texts and illustrations devoted to 26 imaginary women. She illustrates ‘Therèse’, a pale, alienated young woman, to illustrate a short text by Francis de Miomandre lamenting the quotidian life of a northern housewife confined to domesticity despite dreams of a more passionate existence. The other texts include contributions from Henri de Regnier, Giraudoux, la Comtesse de Noailles, Colette, Mac Orlan and Mauriac, and the illustrations include lithographs by Dunoyer de Segonzac, Dufy, Marie Laurencin, Lydis, Daragnès, and Laborde. This is copy 131 of 150 on Arches (after 20 on Japon and 50 on Hollande).

The striking and accomplished binding bears the stamp of Louise Pinard, daughter and successor of the Parisian binder Lucien Durvand (1852-1924). After his death in 1924 his daughter Louise continued to produce bindings until 1934, possibly the date of her own death.

First edition with the Lydis illustrations. One of a total edition of 131 copies, this one of the 115 on papier de Rives). The illustrations, many in the style of illuminated miniatures or icons are transformed through brilliant pochoir colouring executed in the workshop of master colourist Jean Saude, reproducing the artist’s signature on each.
These verse litanies, after the traditional catholic Marian litany, are entirely the creation of Armand Godoy and were first published (unillustrated) in 1930. Symbolist poet Godoy was born in Havana in 1880 and spent the first part of his life in Cuba and Peru, working in banking and the tobacco trade, before emigrating to France in 1919 with the express intention of becoming a poet ‘dans la langue de Baudelaire’. Much influenced by the Parnassians and the symbolists he was also a major collector of books, manuscripts and prints, amassing an unrivalled collection of Baudelaireiana. Among his numerous small-scale published works in French is his translation of Poe’s Raven — Le Corbeau d’Edgar Poe (Émile-Paul frères, 1929, with a frontispiece by Lydis).

First editions of both text and plates, this copy with the artist’s signature and additional pencil extracts from the text added in pencil to the lower margins of each plate.

Govone printed 353 copies of his large-format Baudelaire in 1928, together with just 125 copies of an accompanying suite of etched plates by Lydis. This left over 200 copies of the text un-illustrated, many of which were unsold by 1935, when Lydis prepared a new suite of plates for them - the present 33 hand-coloured plates. The text volume was reissued in new wrappers and paired with the new plates. This copy of the text is number 173 of the 290 copies on hollande, and the 33 plates are all signed in pencil.

The reissue of the 1928 text with the 1935 plates has been a frequent cause of bibliographic confusion, with the highly distinctive plates often catalogued as dating from 1928. They do not, and are entirely different from Lydis’ earlier suite.

First edition, one 353 copies of the text and just 125 of the plates (both volumes numbered 11) with all plates signed by Mariette Lydis and in their coloured state, generally considered Mariette Lydis’ finest book. The text volume contains a facsimile of Baudelaire’s self portrait and a page of facsimile of his manuscript, both from the collection of Armand Godoy, as well as the loose leaf ‘Prière d’inserer...’ by Jean Royère’, the latter not always preserved. The artist created a further sequence of coloured drawings for Les Fleurs du Mal in the 1930s issued as lithographs in 1935. These reproductions were frequently bound up with remaining copies of the 1928 text volume, causing confusion among cataloguers, with these hybrid 1928/33 volumes habitually dated 1928 without further comment. The 1935 illustrations have none of the sparse intensity of Lydis’ 1928 sequence of etched plates. Carteret IV, 63: ‘Ensemble recherchée et cotée. Une des meilleures illustrations de l’artiste’.

First edition, one of 180 numbered copies on papier vélin (total edition 250 copies). A collection of sixteen illustrated proverbs and popular superstitions (broken mirrors, the number thirteen, touching wood and so on). Somewhat in the vein of the artist’s earlier dreambook (Orientalishches Traumbuch) it contains the ironic dedication: ‘Ce livre est dédié à la femme tout spécialement, cet être frêle et sans défense, faible et indécis, qui a tellement besoin d’un appui occulte pour la guider’. The pochoir colouring is by Saude and the typography by Maurice Darantière (of Joyce’s Ulysses fame).

First edition with Lydis’s illustrations, complete with the 14 additional erotic plates to complement the 42 plates bound in (some of which are equally ‘libres’). Number 209 of 900 copies on Arches (after 56 Japon copies each with an additional drawing), total edition 956..