Voyages et aventures du Chevalier Benno d’Elsenburg en l’année 1225.
[France], c. 1800.
Three volumes in one. Folio (370 x 230 mm.. Contemporary bifoliation: 51 [r. 50] and 45 [r. 46] and 51 bifolia. In a single cursive hand in two columns.
Contemporary green sheep-backed green paper boards (worn), gilt outer frame of acorns and foliage, spine and red morocco label gilt, some leaves uncut.
Unpublished anonymous French translation. Spieß specialized in the gruesome, the marvelous, the supernatural and the sinful. His Das Petermännchen influenced Ann Radcliffe and was the model for Lewis’ The Monk.
This novel recounts the adventures of Benno, a dashing knight, his celibate (male) companion and his love, the beautiful Agnes. Its absurdist wit and bad grammar “may well have touched on some sore spots in society that later socialist literature so actively engaged” (Müller-Fraureuth, tr.).
WE KNOW HOW THIS FAIR COPY WAS PRODUCED. The scribe (?translator) independently numbered the sheets, folded each in half to make four pages then vertically creased each bifolium to make two columns per page, the left for text and the right for corrections. On finishing the whole, he passed the one hundred forty-seven bifolia to the binder, who sewed each independently. In good condition.
¶See Müller-Fraureuth’s Die Ritter- und Räuberromane 57-8 & 96 and Goedeke’s Grundrisz zur Geschichte der deutschen Dichtung V: 50,23 for the German original.
Price: $5,250.00