Poésies de Marie de France
Paris: Chasseriau, 1820.
Two octavo volumes, complete (22.0 x 14 cm, the pages 20.8 x 13.1 cm). Contemporary quarter brown calf over marbled boards, spines with gilt lettering and rules, edges uncut, green endpapers, green marker ribbons intact, in a custom clamshell box by Nello Nanni, quarter brown calf and gilt lettering over Cave layered indigo and brown flax paper covers. Collates v. 1, 592 pp.: x, 581, [1]; v. 2, 510 pp.: vi, 504. Engraved frontispiece illustrations by A. de Godefroy after Charles Abraham Chasselat, with tissue guards. Spines and covers showing minor wear, negligible scattered foxing internally. Engraved armorial bookplates of M le Vte. L.F. de Villeneuve Bargemont. A very good, well preserved set overall, uncut hence wide and tall, strong and bright internally, incisively printed on fine laid paper by Firmin Didot. Vicaire V, 521; Brunet III, 646; Viollet-le-Duc II, 64; Cole 1819/1, second issue.
These volumes constitute the first edition of Marie de France in the original Old French. The publication was inspired by a series of articles which Roquefort wrote for the Michaud frères Biographie universelle on the lives of medieval poets. The first volume is the second issue of 1820 with Chasseriau’s credit, after the dissolution of Chasseriau et Hécart, the original publisher of the volume in 1819. The second volume is the first issue, by Chasseriau in 1820. The complete page run for all the issues (there was a third in 1832) was printed at the same time, in 1819 and 1820, and the preliminaries were thereafter partially amended to reflect the changes of publisher.
Marie de France, whose fables and lais date from the 12th or early 13th century, is one of the greatest women writers. Though almost no biographical information is available, her simple, engaging style, embodying the burgeoning tradition of courtly love and romance, presents complex characters engaged with a realism unusual for her time.
Provenance: Louis François de Villeneuve Bargemont, académicien
of the Institut de France, author of the Monumens des grands-maîtres
de l'ordre de Saint-Jean-de-Jérusalem (Brunet V, 1241: "ouvrage
remarquable”), known also for his histories of René d'Anjou
and Saint Louis.
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Price: $1,900
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