Progen, Jean-François de. 1719-1783.

[Half-title:] Essai De Critique, Reflexions Et Contes Moraux.

?Toulouse, s.n. c. 1764.

12mo (166 x 95 mm.). 108, [1]p. and EIGHT LEAVES OF ?AUTHORIAL MANUSCRIPT.

Contemporary richly gilt light tan sheep (extremities rubbed), wide borders composed of foliage, blooms, flowers, birds, crescents and rules (eleven different tools), flowers repeated in the spine compartments, gilt-lettered red morocco label, all edges gilt, green silk marker.

            Only Edition, THE ONLY COPY KNOWN, CONTAINING TWO SHORT MANUSCRIPTS BOUND AFTER THE PRINTED TEXT. In 1762, Progen joined Toulouse’s Académie des Jeux floraux, Europe’s oldest literary society. At the Academy’s meetings he delivered these discourses, which include critical remarks on the works of Molière, a collection of maxims, two moral tales, thanks to the Academy and a short poem (these last two in manuscript). His contemporaries remembered him as polite, punctual and punctilious. When he played an excellent misanthropic Alceste at Mme. de Bournazel’s salon, “he needed only to slightly exaggerate the expression of his own feelings” (Poitevin-Peitav, tr.).
            The book does not have a formal title-page, nor does the author’s name appear anywhere in the book. A printed Avis following the half-title jokes that while his auditors had no choice but to listen to him, readers have the option of ignoring this book. These — combined with the two manuscripts and the carefully corrected errata on sixteen pages — suggest this book circulated privately and that this copy passed through the author’s hands. In excellent condition.
¶Poitevin-Peitavi, Mémoire pour servir à l'histoire des Jeux floraux I: 170-5; Lacroix, Bibliographie moliéresque 1543; Conlon, Prélude au siècle des Lumières 64179.

Item #12398

Price: $4,800.00