Contes Drolatiques : Droll Stories by Honore de Balzac - 1874

London: The Bibliophilist Society, [n.d.]. Hardcover. Brown cloth over boards. Faded gilt lettering and decoration to spine. Faded red dye to top edge. No publication date, but translator's preface stating "the present is the first English version ever brought before the public" is dated January 1874. With 462(!) engravings by Gustave Doré. A Fair book with no dust jacket. Prior owner's name inked to title page, no other markings observed. Pages lightly toned. Spine straight, hinges cracked, spine head frayed. No jacket. Not from a library. xxxii + 651 pages.

Set in medieval Europe, the Droll Stories were Balzac's attempt to write in the great tradition of Rabelais and Boccaccio, to render the Middle Ages with a touch of raunchy humor, and to provide a delightful portrait of medieval France. Balzac took the old themes that had delighted his ancestors—the tales of faithless wives and confiding husbands, of monks incredibly endowed for amorous athleticism, of lusty wenches and adventurous lads, and of great bouts of eating and drinking.

Contents:
The First Ten Tales: Prologue; The Fair Imperia; The Venial Sin; The King's Sweetheart; The Devil's Heir; The Merrie Jests of King Louis the Eleventh; The High Constable's Wife; The Maid of Thilouse; The Brother-in-Arms; The Vicar of Azay-le-rideau; The Reproach; Epilogue.
The Second Ten Tales: Prologue; The Three Clerks of St. Nicholas; The Continence of King Francis the First; The Merry Tattle of the Nuns of Poissy; How the Chateau D'Azay Came to Be Built; The False Courtesan; The Danger of Being Too Innocent; The Dear Night of Love; The Sermon of the Merry Vicar of Meudon; The Succubus; Despair in Love; Epilogue.
The Third Ten Tales: Prologue; Perseverance in Love; Concerning a Provost Who Did Not Recognise Things; About the Monk Amador, Who Was a Glorious Abbot of Turpenay; Bertha the Penitent; How the Pretty Maid of Portillon Convinced Her Judge; In Which It Is Demonstrated That Fortune Is Always Feminine; Concerning a Poor Man Who Was Called Le Vieux Par-Chemins; Odd Sayings of Three Pilgrims; Innocence; The Fair Imperia Married; Epilogue.