[1:] Pantagruel, Roy des dispodes. [With:] [2:] Grands annales ou croniques tres veritables des gestes merveilleux du grand Gargantua et Pantagruel [...]. [With:] [3:] Le songe de Pantagruel avec la deploraion de feu messire Anthoine du Bourg

[1; 2:] [S.l. (Lyons?)]; [3:] Paris: [1; 2:] [S.n. (Pierre de Tours?)]; [3:] Adam Saulnier, 1542. First edition of the first two books of "La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel" together, second of the authoritative text of both. Bound together with the first edition of François Habert's "Le songe de Pantagruel" and a woodcut portrait of Rabelais. In seventeenth-century red morocco, covers gilt-panelled "Au Semè" binding, consisting of interweaving double, mirrored "D" and an "S", probably the monogram of Dominique Séguier (1593-1659; Bishop of Auxerre and Meaux). Spine with four raised bands, the compartments decorated the same as the panels. Board edges and turn-ins gilt. Marbled endpapers renewed in the nineteenth-century. Some wear to joints and extremities. Seven leaves bound to the front, of which four with notes by five different later hands, and six blank leaves bound to the end, that precedes a woodcut portrait of Rabelais on a smaller leaf. Some copies contain the ten-page "Prognostication", this, just as the BNF copy lacks it. 1: "Pantagruel, Roy des dispodes [...]" bound first unlike other copies. Slightly over-trimmed with tiny losses to letters on three leaves (A7v; A8; M4v). Quire K and the first leaf of L water stained. A tear to the upper edge to M2 with small effect to the text. A tiny hole on the last leaf, and note in ink at the end. 2: Title page of "Grands annales [...]" replaced by a copy (probably early 20th century). A2-3 worn and restored, D5 restored at the edges. Bibliographical note in ink by a later hand to the upper edge of A2r. A tiny tear to the edge of D4. A small defect to I4 with effect to the text. K6v and K7r with notes in ink by contemporary hand, the notes are trimmed. Brown stain to lower edge of quire O. Light water stains occasionally. Both parts printed in bâtarde type, with 6-line and smaller criblé initials, a few Lombard initials, text in 58 chapters. 3: Illegible note or ownership inscription in ink crossed on title-page. Water stain to A1-2. Underlines in the text, and a few notes in ink by contemporary hand. Illegible note at the end, crossed.. First edition of the first two books of "La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel" together, second of the authoritative text of both. Bound together with the first edition of François Habert's "Le songe de Pantagruel" and a woodcut portrait of Rabelais. In seventeenth-century red morocco, covers gilt-panelled "Au Semè" binding, consisting of interweaving double, mirrored "D" and an "S", probably the monogram of Dominique Séguier (1593-1659; Bishop of Auxerre and Meaux). Spine with four raised bands, the compartments decorated the same as the panels. Board edges and turn-ins gilt. Marbled endpapers renewed in the nineteenth-century. [1:] A-N8; [2:] A-P8 (P8 blank); [3:] A-F4., [1:] [104]; [2:] [120]; [3:] [24] leaves.

First edition of the combined edition of the first two books of the pentalogy "La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel", which is the second edition of the authoritative text of both books. Supplemented with the contemporary first edition of François Habert's para-Rabelaisian work "Le songe de Pantagruel" and a woodcut portrait of Rabelais.

This edition of Gargantua and Pantagruel is one of the three 1542 Lyonese editions, probably printed by Pierre de Tours, François Juste's successor. The text is identical to Juste's 1542 revised and enlarged edition, which was presumably prepared from a corrected copy by Rabelais himself who added a few previously unpublished passages and revised those related to the Sorbonne and the "Sorbonnistes" for which the work was formerly condemned by the Parliament (nevertheless condemned again in 1553).

The present edition's preface warns the reader of a pirated edition, referring to Etienne Dolet's 1542 edition, a reprint of Denis Janot's Paris 1537 edition of the unexpurgated text. The preface, a note from "Limprimeur au Lecteur" is attributed to Rabelais by some bibliographer's, among them Brunet in his Recherches sur les éditions originales de Rabelais (Paris, 1852), however it was disproved by Plan ("C'est avoir une bien piètre opinion de son style" ...).

Extremely scarce edition. Rawles and Screech list only three copies.

The third part of the volume is Habert's para-Rabelaisian work, constructed around three dreams, and supports the facultative marriage of the clergy which was an important issue of the time. The work was published in Paris by Adam Saulnier in 1542, two different editions are known form the same year, with minor differences on the title page. Exceedingly scarce, only one other copy known of the present one (Chantilly (Fr), Musée Condé), and two of the variant (FB 24772; USTC 27250). (No surviving copy is known of the undated Rouen edition, by Claude le Roy [Du Verdier: pp. L4r, p. 403].)

Rabelais' woodcut portrait bound to the rear of the book. The portrait is identical to his first known portrait, which appeared in the 1569 Jean Martin edition of "Les Oeuvres".

This copy contains seven addition leaves bound before the printed text, of which four are inscribed by five different neat hands. The earliest and longest is by an unknown hand, quotes Scévole de Sainte-Marthe's comments on Rabelais in French and Latin (from Virorum doctrina illustrium; Poitiers, 1598.). This is followed by a short unidentified possessor's inscription in French, which states that the book was bought in October 1806 and claims - erroneously - that it has belonged to the French noblewomen, and maîtresse-en-titre of Henry II, Diane de Poitiers (1499-1566), supposedly because of the binding's ornaments of the interweaving double "D", which was an emblem appeared often on her bindings. The leaf mounted on the inner front panel contains notes by three nineteenth-century hands in German, by the historian Karl Halling (1806-1837) who also attributes the binding incorrectly to Diane de Poitiers, a short note by an unidentified hand in pencil, and by the literary historian, Camillus Wendeler (1843-1902), providing bibliographical references to the content of the volume.

Bibliographical references for Rabelais' Gargantua and Pantagruel:
Rawles and Screech 26 (refers to only three known copies: BL, BN, and Fondation Bodmer, Geneva); Plan, 42-43; Brunet IV, 1049; Tchemerzine V, 273; Higman no. R 20; Gueltlingen vol. 9 pp. 7 no. 9; FB 45216; USTC 60196

For Habert's Le songe de Pantagruel:
FB 24773; USTC 59263

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