Fables Nouvelles, Suivies De Poésies Fugitives.
Paris, A.-C. Cailleau 1784.
12mo (140 x 81 mm.). xii, 144p. Woodcut French royal arms on the title.
Contemporary blind-ruled mottled tan calf, flat spine gilt à la grotesque, gilt-lettered red morocco label, red edges.
First Edition, a near perfect copy. These sixty-eight traditional verse fables are both a mix of original compositions and imitations of other fabulists, such as Englishman John Gay (1685-1732) and Spaniard Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa (1750-91). Of the twenty poems that close the book, one imitates Pope and others satirize doctors, marriage and a riddler. I have located one other copy (BnF). Fine, 19th-century bookplate of Le Mareschal Beauvais.
¶Conlon, Le Siècle des Lumières 84:1343; Cioranescu 37815; Quérard, La France littéraire 5: 6; see Frère’s Manuel du bibliographe normand I: 62.
Price: $1,850.00