ASHFORD (Daisy):

The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteenas Plan. With a Preface by J. M. Barrie.

London: Chatto & Windus, [1919.] Seventh Impression. Small 8vo, pp. 86 [87 printer's imprint, 88 blank], portrait of author as frontispiece, facsimile of first page of ms. opposite page 19, contemporary (?original) marbled boards, linen spine, paper label (chipped); title-page browned from tissue guard, corners worn, a little shaken in casing. With the autograph "Rowena Ross" on the lower margin of the recto of the front free end-paper. Readers of a certain age will never get beyond the first line: "Mr Salteena was an elderly man of 42...." Of course, the author was nine when she wrote the work.

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 6208

Catalogue: Fiction

Keywords: fiction children literature women

BALZAC (Honore de):

Les Contes Drolatiques colligez ez abbayes de touraine et mis en lumiere par lesieur de Balza pour l'esbattement des pantagruelistes et non aultres. Huitieme Edition illustree de 425 dessins par Gustave Doré.

Paris, Garnier Frères, [n. d., c.1880]. 8vo, pp. xxxi [xxxii adverts], 614, with illustrations as described on title-page, contemporary half calf, marbled boards, spine ornately gilt in compartments. A very good and an attractive copy.

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 3716

Catalogue: Fiction

Keywords: fiction literature French

[BEAURIEU (Gaspard Guillard, de)]:

L'Eleve de la Nature

A Amsterdam, & se trouve a Paris, Chez Panckoucker..., 1766. 2 volumes in 1. 12mo, 163 x 93 mms., pp. iv, 202; [ii], 139 [140 blank], contemporary lightly mottled sheepskin, spine richly gilt, red leather label; top of spine and joints slightly wormed, but a good copy with the bookplate of Payen de Chavoy on the front paste-down end-paper, and the autograph dated 1767 on the top margin of each title-page (closely trimmed by binder, partially removing upper portions of letters.) Jean Bloch in "Gaspard Guillard de Beaurieu's L'Eleve de la Nature and Rousseau's Emile" (French Studies, July, 1972), that "little has been heard of Gaspard Guillard de Beaurieu's L'Eleve de la Nature and its relationship to Rousseau's Emile since Emile Legouis's Taylorian Lecture of 1925. Yet, despite its obvious naivete of detail, its sentimentality and exaggeration, de Beaurieu's book holds what would appear to be a unique position among the host of those which discuss or imitate Emile in France before the Revolution. L'Eleve de la Nature alone consciously adopts not only the dual formation of Emile, that of the natural man destined for society, but also Rousseau's method of achieving this, though de Beaurieu does it in a grossly exaggerated and transformed manner.... A novel rather than a pedagogical treatise, it deals much more comprehensively with Rousseau's system than Poncelet's and Formey's comments of the same year do. L'Eleve de la Nature is outstanding in that it consciously adopts the double education of Emile. This may simply be the result of copying Emile fairly closely, but it nevertheless produces an interpretation of Emile that is very different from other pre-revolutionary interpretations. In the Preface to the 1766 edition (the book went through eight separate editions between 1766 and 1794), the libraire states that the system of education put forward in the book has two goals, the first to form 'un honnete homme heureux par lui-meme' and the second to 'rendre cet honnete homme encore plus heureux, en en faisant un bon citoyen'."

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 9782

Catalogue: Fiction

Keywords: fiction education prose

BOCCACCIO (Giovanni):

The Decameron or Ten Days Entertainment of Boccaccio. Translated from the Italian. In Two Volumes. The Second Edition. To which are prefixed, Remarks on the Life and Writings of Boccaccio, and An Advertisement, by the author of Old Nick, a Piece of Family Biography, &c.

London: Printed by J. Wright...For Vernor and Hood..., Longman and Reese..., 1804. 2 volumes. 8vo, 208 x 126 mms., pp. 350 [351 adverts, 352 blank]; [iv], 395 [396 colophon], including half-title in each volume, engraved portrait (after Titian) of Boccaccio as frontispiece in volume 1, engraved vignette on each title-page, contemporary tree calf, red and green morocco labels; joints on volume 1 cracked (but holding), but a good set. This translation by Charles Balguy (1708 - 1767) was first published in 1741, and ODNB claims that it was many times reprinted. The present set does seem to be a much expanded second edition, with a great deal of additional material. The revision is by Edward Dubois (1774 - 1850), who published A Piece of Family Biography in 1799 and Old Nick: a Satirical Story in 1801. The notice in The European Magazine and London Review, for 1804, having asserted that Il Decamerone had always been "considered too free in its language for general perusal" praises Dubois' redaction: "A Gentleman and Scholar who has able distinguished himself as Novelist and Critic under the whimsical name of Old Nick, has her done all that we think can be performed towards purifying and chastening the diction, without deteriorating the rich humour of the Novels."

John Price Antiquarian BooksProfessional seller

Book number: 8079

Catalogue: Fiction

Keywords: fiction translation literature