Les contes et discours bigarrez...Deduits en neuf matinées

Paris: A. du Brueil, 1611. Very Good. 12mo. [6], 268 (misnumbered), [2] leaves = 276 ff, COMPLETE. Bound in 19th century calf, covers panelled in blind with blind-stamped floral tool on corners, spine with two raised bands, title lettered in gilt with blind-stamped tooling above and below bands, usual wear and tear along hinges, slightly bumped corners, three small divots in edges of front cover, marbled endpapers, doublures gilt, evidence of cloth bookmark. Pages quite browned due to the paper quality, gilt and gauffered textblock edges, early French inscription on verso of title, some faint inscriptions in French ff. Z5v and Z6v, one in English on f. Q10r. Armorial bookplate of I. G. Schorsch on front pastedown. A curious 17th-century printing blunder: as is true in the Wellcome Library copy, sig. Q is wrongly printed, resulting in the annoyance of an early English bibliographer who in our copy has written: "This finishing page to the 6th Matinee should have been printed on the opposite leaf, & the beginning of the 7th upon this" (recto of the unnumbered leaf preceding fol. 189). The present volume, a reprinting of the "Neuf Matinees" by the Sieur de Cholieres (1509-1592), is a collection of satirical tales on various subjects in the vein of Rabelais. The author "left only few details about his life, but his work speaks for him: the discourses on all kinds of questions contained in his 'Matinees' (1585) and his 'Après-dinees' (1587 ) show us a scientist preoccupied with philosophy, chemistry, astronomy and all human knowledge. He was a learned gentleman and poet, devoted to study and devoted entirely to science, letters, and the liberal arts. In his two collections, he tackles both questions of medicine and law, astrology and the customs of the times (et etc.). The discussions to which he invites us, while being rich in information on the time when they take place, are pretexts to bring forth the humor and the non-conformism of a humanist who claimed to be only a modest pupil of master François Rabelais" (trans. from Edouard Trivotel and Paul Lacroix's introduction to the 1879 edition). The nine "Matinees" are composed as follows: I. Gold and Iron. II. Laws & Medicine. III. From the hands of lawyers. IV. Chatrés. V. Ugly and beautiful women. VI. Of the Jealousy of the husband and the wife. VII. On the unequal age of the married couple. VIII. Letters and Warriors. IX. Of the marital truce.