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First edition in French of Carl Engelmanns Tagebuch (1800) from Lafontaines’ Familiengeschichten series (1797-1804), translated by novelist Isabelle de Montolieu. Lafontaine’s didactic tales of domestic life, though now little remembered, were among the most-read German novels of the day. OCLC: Bibliothèque Sainte-Genviève, Indiana and Penn State only.

First edition of Genlis’ historical novel, full of overt analogies to the upheavals of the Revolution, written during Genlis’ exile and offered as a sequel to Les Veillées du Château. It appeared in English in a translation by James Beresford as The Knights of the Swan in 1796 (printed for J. Johnson). A measure of its remarkable currency in the literature of the following century is provided by its cameo appearance in Tolstoy’s War and Peace. On an occasion when Prince Andrew visited General Kutuzof, ‘He found him reclining in an armchair, still in the same unbuttoned overcoat. He had in his hand a French book which he closed as Prince Andrew entered, marking the place with a knife. Prince Andrew saw by the cover that it was Les Chevaliers du Cygne by Madame de Genlis’ (X, chapter 16). Cioranescu, 30617; Martin, Mylne & Frautschi, Bibliographie du genre romanesque français, 1751-1800, 95.20.

First edition of the last of Galart de Montjoie’s several novels on a Spanish theme. 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. Margaret Rees, French Authors on Spain, 1800-1850 A Checklist (1977), As 37. Rare: OCLC lists copies at Bn, National Library of Sweden and Michigan State University only.

Marianne exercised a lively influence on the development of the novel both in France and England, being widely-read on both sides of the Channel. Left incomplete by Marivaux, it was first published in 11 individual parts between 1731 and 1741 and a final part added later by Madame Riccoboni. There were numerous French and English editions: this attractive Cazin-like edition contains all 12 parts, the ‘Londres’ imprint is false, and the second volume bears a Paris ‘chez Laporte’ imprint. cf. Gay IV, 1338 and Cioransecu 42737-42747 (first edition), neither lists our edition. ESTC: BL, Amsterdam Universiteitsbibliothek, Johns Hopkins, McGill and McMaster. OCLC adds no more.

First editions in French of the two novels Old Mortality and The Black Dwarf (1816) from Scott’s Tales of my Landlord, only the second volume of Scott’s fictional works to appear in France (after Guy Mannering). Pseudonymously issued, both in Britain and France, it was listed under the pseudonym ‘Cleisbotham’ in the Bibliographie de France. This is the first of Auguste-Jean-Baptiste Defauconpret’s translations and marks the beginning of Scott’s celebrity in France: ‘the first considerable success’ (Dargan). It is also one of the most influential of Scott’s works in France. ‘Defauconpret’s Les Puritains d’Ecosse gave Scott his first French success and first major European breakthrough. Although partially obscured by Ivanhoe and Quentin Durward, it remained for many Frenchmen the Scott novel Par excellence. Stendhal is among many to call Scott not ‘the author of Waverly’ but ‘the author of Old Mortality’ Often critical of Scott, Stendhal remained an unswerving admirer of Old Mortality’ (Barnaby). It was also frequently alluded to by Balzac throughout La Comédie Humaine.

On the strength of its immediate success, the publisher, Nicolle (the predecessor of Gosselin) engaged Defauconpret to translate subsequent novels as they appeared. Bearing in mind its tremendous influence on French European literature, the French edition is remarkably rare. WorldCat lists copies at Bn, NLS, Universities of Edinburgh, Leipzig and Princeton. E. Preston Dargan, ‘Scott and the French Romantics’, PMLA, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Jun 1934), 2 & 3 (May 3); Paul Barnaby, ‘Another Tale of Old Mortality: The Translations of Auguste-Jean-Baptiste Defauconpret in the French Reception of Scott.’ in Pittock, ed., The Reception of Sir Walter Scott in Europe, 2006; Garside, Raven and Schöwerling, The English Novel 1770-1829, 1816: 53.

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.

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.

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, privately printed. The limitation notice reads ‘This Edition is issued to Subscribers only and limited to two hundred and fifty copies, numbered and signed by the Author. The price will be doubled after first of March, 1931’. This copy is, however, unsigned and unnumbered. The work forms issue no. 5 of The Lugano Series.

‘From 1920 until 1937 Douglas was settled in Florence... As his fame grew, he became much visited by inter-war writers, and forged close friendships with D. H. Lawrence and Bryher. During these years he lived with the publisher Giuseppe (Pino) Orioli, who helped him publish several limited editions, most of which were later commercially published in London... In 1937 Douglas was forced to flee Florence after the police made enquiries concerning his friendship with a ten-year-old local girl’ (Katherine Mullin in Oxford DNB).

An apparently unrecorded issue of this anonymous anti-freemasonry sermon, probably a piracy of the incendiary pamphlet printed in the same year as Masonry the Way to Hell. The Sermon provoked a response from John Thompson, freemason, entitled Remarks on a sermon lately published; entitled, Masonry the way to hell. Being a defence of that antient and honourable order, against the Jesuitical sophistry and false calumny of the author.
The sermon takes as its text Revelation XVII, 5 ‘And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots, and Abominations of the Earth’ and gives a detailed consideration of the supposed ceremonies of the masons. Four other editions/issues dated 1768 under the slightly different titles with different paginations, but all four are recorded by ESTC in single copies only.
Not found in ESTC or Worldcat.

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 of this play, copy on large and thick paper. Marescalchi was born in Bologna, then in the Papal States, on 26 February 1754, into a noble family, he became a hereditary member of the Senate of that town. He later supported Napoleon in Italy and prospered under his patronage.