BOOKS IN FRENCH      

FIRST toTimbuktu & Back

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•  First edition. Caillié, a French explorer and adventurer inspired by a boyhood love of Robinson Crusoe, spent eight months in Senegal posing as a convert to Islam and learning Arabic; he was also the first modern European traveller to make a successful voyage to Timbuktu and back — Maj. Gordon Lang preceded him to the city, but was murdered during his travel home. Caillié was awarded the Société de Géographie de Paris prize of 10,000 francs for his completed trip, despite his description of his travels through Senegal, Mali, and the Sahara's having been met with some skepticism in his native France; the travelogue was better received in England, and very popular in translation there.

Vol. I opens with a steel-engraved portrait of the author.

•  Howgego, II, C2.   Period-style quarter tan cloth and light blue paper–covered sides, spines with printed paper labels. Five plates and one map lacking (frontispiece present); two leaves each with tear along inner margin, not touching text; foxed throughout but without embrittlement.  (24387)

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PERSIA in10 Volumes & 79 Plates

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•  Attractive French edition of Sir John Chardin's Persian travelogue, originally published in 1686. Brunet calls the account, which covers Chardin's voyages through India, Russia, and Persia, "un des plus intéressants que l'on ait publiés" in the 18th century; the work was and continues to be a major source of information on contemporary Persian politics, government, religion, and culture. The title-pages are printed in red and black, and the 10 volumes are illustrated with a total of 79 plates (many folding) and tables, including one map and one frontispiece.

•  Brunet, I, 1802. Contemporary speckled calf, spines extra gilt; edges, joints and extremities rubbed, leather in some cases cracked or starting along joints or chipped at spine extremities, two spines with compartments chipped. All edges speckled. Front pastedowns each with institutional bookplate, front free endpapers rubber-stamped and with inked ownership inscriptions dated [18]67, title-pages except for vol. I rubber-stamped, reverse of map in vol. I rubber-stamped, some vols. with first text page rubber-stamped. Additional plate (creased) laid in, seemingly excised from another work.

Wisdom, Censored — Post-PURCHASE?!

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•  Later printing of Charron’s final work, a philosophical treatise which was first published in 1601 and which was strongly connected to Montaigne’s essays. Although the author was a Catholic priest widely acclaimed for skillful preaching, he and La Sagesse came under bitter attack by the clergy when the work first appeared, on the grounds of its promoting skepticism and free thinking. This particular copy seems to have incurred someone’s personal wrath, as the plate illustrating the allegory of Wisdom has had its central (nude) female figure excised.  The much more staid frontispiece portrait of the author, done by Pruneau, is undamaged.

•  Contemporary mottled calf framed in triple gilt fillets, spine gilt extra, all page edges marbled; binding with expectable acid-pitting and minor cracking of the leather over the spine and joints. One (and only one) signature foxed, leaves otherwise clean. A handsome book, defaced in a way that is depressing but also interesting.

For the Peace of the State

•  Also published as Harangue prononcée au roi en sa ville de Blois, following the negotiations between Condé and Marie de Medici, this is apparently a variant — not bearing the attribution “Par un Seigneur de qualité.” The title-page features a vignette of the royal coat of arms (per pale France and Navarre). Click the images for enlargements.

WorldCat and Lindsay & Neu combine to locate only three copies in the U.S.

•  Lindsay & Neu 3721; see also 3636.   Recent paper–covered boards, front cover with printed paper label. Title-page verso with inked numeral; all four leaves institutionally pressure-stamped. Inner margins reinforced. Clean.  (27785)

Village Scandal withDubout Illustrations

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•  First edition thus: A much-celebrated (and twice-filmed) French satire of small town life, here with over 100 color-printed comic scenes, some bawdy, rendered by cartoonist and illustrator Albert Dubout. The illustrations are charming, now quaint, and très “French.”

The limitation statement asserts that a total of 1250 copies were produced — but the present example is stamped “Exemplaire no. 12392.”

•  Publisher's color-printed ivory wrappers, in glassine jacket and original textured paper–covered slipcase; glassine chipped at extremities and slipcase split along one edge. Wrappers faintly darkened overall and moreso at spine, where they are also a just trifle rubbed/chipped; interior clean and illustrations bright.  (28308)

The Augsburg Confession — 51 Documents
The First Much Annotated  

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•  Uncommon sole edition: The first French translation of the Historia Augustanae Confessionis, published in 1578. This collection of 51 documents laying out the chief principles of Lutheran doctrine was edited by Chytraeus and translated into French by Luc le Cop, a Savoyard living in Antwerp.

Chytraeus (1531–1600, born David Kochhafe) was a pupil of Luther's and Melanchthon's, and a professor of theology at the University of Rostock; he contributed significantly to the writing of the Formula of Concord.

Rare.  OCLC lists only four U.S. holdings and one deaccessioned copy (the present example).

Provenance: Front pastedown with small bookplate of William Jackson, an important collector whose substantial library was auctioned by the Harrassowitz firm in 1910.

•  Brunet 22420; Graesse, II, 154. Not in Adams.   19th-century quarter olive morocco with marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped author/title; edges and extremities rubbed. Top edge gilt. Front pastedown with bookplate as above; title-page and first text page each with early inked ownership inscription. Four leaves with small repaired tears from outer margins and three likewise from upper margins, not touching text in any case. Extensive early inked marginalia in first document, scattered examples elsewhere.  (23536)

False Imprint

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•  First edition of these “Déclamations énergiques contre Louis XIV, à l'occasion des persécutions suscitées aux protestants” (Brunet), written by a Huguenot minister and theologian who fled France after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The work was issued under the fictitious Marteau imprint, well known as a shelter for satirical, political, pirated, and otherwise questionable or potentially scandalous works; this is an early “Marteau” item, with the first such imprint having appeared in 1660.

Provenance: Howard Osgood.

•  Brunet, IV, 683.   Contemporary calf, spine elegantly gilt extra, board edges with gilt rolls; leather acid-pitted, edges and extremities a bit rubbed. Title-page with small inked owner's name and institutional pressure-stamp. Damp-spotting to first and last few pages; some leaves starting to separate, many with lower outer corners crumpled. Intermittent underlining and marks of emphasis in red pencil throughout. (20861)

L'essence du Tao — Systèmes Nya'ya et Vais'echi'ka

•  French translation of two papers on Hindu philosophy, by the great English scholar of Sanskrit, which first appeared in the “Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society,” in five parts, 1823–7. First essay: “Philosophie Sa'nkya.” Second essay: “Systèmes Nya'ya et Vais'echi'ka.” Also includes an appendix to the first essay and “Spécimen d'une edition et d'une traduction critiques du Tao-Te-King de Lao-Tseu. Argument du Ier chapitre.” Click the images for enlargements.

•  19th-century German boards, with black mottled paper, spine with inked paper title label; paper rubbed and abraded, spine chipped at head. All edges stained red. Ex-library with 19th-century bookplate on front pastedown, call number in black on spine and in pencil on verso of title-page, paper shelf label (with call number blacked out) on lower left corner of front cover, and four-digit number in ink on p. [iii]. No stamps and, withal, Very Good.  (19255)

Love & FriendshipArtfully Preserved

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•  Liber amicorum, cum scrapbook, cum pop art collection: Autograph and ephemera album opening with a charming watercolor title-page featuring a harper, labelled “Fautoribus ac amicis consecrat Mich. Conradt.” Conradt was apparently a student at Hermannstadt University; many of the inscriptions — which range from affectionate to academic — are from fellow students at Sibo (i.e., Sibiu, a.k.a. Hermannstadt), Jena, and Erlangen.

Those messages are largely found in the latter half of the volume, however; earlier leaves hold a variety of sentimental remembrances: a drawing of a rose with accompanying fond sentiment in French, pressed flowers, small sketches and paintings (including one of a dog with a great deal of personality), an entire gallery of engraved miniature portraits of ladies with accompanying verses in fraktur (alphabetically arranged from Anna to Therese), three reverse silhouettes of white paper cutouts mounted on black paper, a calendar wheel, and nine brightly hand-colored printed pages, all of which seem to have been taken from the same rebus book.

The students' messages are dated 1769 through 1772, while some of the artwork is of later origin; a cherub-and-cornucopia design labelled “Freuden - Blüthen” is marked 1821, while a sketch with German quotation is dated 1834. A preliminary leaf bears a difficult-to-decipher inscription signed 1887, regarding Michael Conradt von Sonnenstein.

Binding: Contemporary mottled sheep, covers elaborately framed in gilt rolls surrounding gilt-stamped medallions, spine with gilt-stamped decorations. Hand-painted endpapers; all edges gilt.

•  Binding as above: binding rubbed, covers acid-pitted, spine sueded, gilt mostly lost (with deeply impressed stamping still very visible and attractive). Preliminary leaf with inscription as above. A few leaves excised; some chipping. Evocative and intriguing.  (27304)

Bridgewater Library — French Theater

•  A Bridgewater Library set with its enormous armorial bookplate. A late edition.

•  Contemporary calf. Gilt spines, rebacked and original spines reapplied. Spines very dry, chipped with some loss and lacking title labels, but with new volume labels.

For Books for the BUSTED
            BIBLIOPHILE,  click here.

Cortes's Stirring Lettersin French

•  French-language edition of the second, third, and fourth letters incorrectly numbered respectively as the first, second, and third. Translated by M. le vicomte de Flavigny. Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  Sabin 16953.   Contemporary treed calf, front joint (outside) starting at top to open. A good+ copy — in fact, a rather nice one.  (20510)

ELIZABETH Must Have Loved HisThinking on Monarchy

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•  First edition. Richard Crompton, member and bencher of the Middle Temple, states in his dedication to Sir John Puckering that this legal treatise was written in the fields and in his house during the leisure hours of his retirement so that he could find solace in his old age. The Dictionary of National Biography notes that it was “commended in North's Discourse on the Study of the Law” and that “a selection of Star-chamber Cases was made from this work and published in 1630 and 1641.”

The work has significant political theory interest: Crompton offers legal reasoning to justify an uncompromising hierarchical society governed by a powerful monarch. This is much in line with Bodin's reasoning in France at the same time.

Written inLaw French with some Latin, and with extended passages entirely in English in the section on “forrest” law; printed in black letter.

Provenance: Contemporary inked signatures to fly-leaf of Henry Wynn/Wine (Middle Temple?).

•  ESTC S109077; STC (2nd ed.) 6050; Lowndes, I, 558.   Contemporary limp vellum with remnants of ties. Pinhole or small worming throughout to top margins, touching a few letters in headings; light waterstaining to margins/corners of first/last leaves; one preliminary with just a very little bug-spotting. Paper flaws in margins of ff. 45, 164, and 172; last leaf a little tattered. Overall, very good. (21344)

By Fr. “Double Leaf/Fixed Star”

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•  Contained here are a critical examination of some philological works on New World languages by Schoolcraft and Duponceau, a study of the principles of the grammatical structures of Algonquian and Iroquois, and finally comparative lexicons of the Algonquian and Iroquoian languages based on McKensie, Duponceau, Schoolcraft, Catlin, and others. The initials N.O., adopted by Father Cuoq and appearing upon the title-pages of a number of his works, are the first letters of the names given him by the Indians among whom he lived — the first, Nij-kwe-natc-anibic, being a Nipissing name meaning the beautiful double leaf; the second, Orakwanentakon, a Mohawk name meaning a fixed star.

Father Cuoq (1821–98) was an extremely accomplished linguist as evidenced by his becoming fluent in both Algonquin and Iroquois; Field (Indian Bibliography, p. 93) writes glowingly of his mastery of these languages. His life as a missionary of the Order of Sulpitians, notably among the Nipissing at Lake of Two Mountains, certainly aided in his scholarly achievement.

•  Pilling, Algonquian, 100-101; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 952; Field 391; Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection, Algonkin-14; Sabin 17980. Not in Banks; not in Evans, Masinanhikan. Original printed green wrappers, spine reinforced some time ago, edges chipped. Half-title with pencilled annotations. First text page rubber-stamped by a now-defunct institution; pages otherwise clean.

TO Part IV . . .

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