La Gibeciere De Mome Ov Thresor Dv Ridicvle... pour le diuertissement du monde

            Only Edition, early issue of this assortment of surprises. Excoriator and Satirist in Chief of the Gods, Momus tells us that long before the present GRAB-BAG OF OVER FIVE HUNDRED ANECDOTES, JOKES, PARODIES AND WITTICISMS was published, Boccaccio had dipped into this same satchel for his tales. In our stories, which range from two lines to two pages, no one is spared - nobles, doctors, lawyers, tradesmen, sex workers, philosophers, priests, booksellers, nuns, kings and popes. No topic is off limits - religion, sex, gender, class, art, butts, nationalities, usury, penis and breast size, adultery, vanity, drunkenness, crime, gluttony, cuckoldry.... The comedy sometimes turns on subverting power dynamics with, for example, wives humiliating their controlling husbands. Often, however, simply holding a mirror to human absurdity gets a chuckle. The editors even spoof the custom of numbering entries, a practice abandoned after it goes haywire ("xlxxx"!) only a few pages into the volume. In good condition (a few spots, one word poorly inked), a bookseller's ticket partly removed from the front flyleaf.
¶Weber, "Les Recueils de fictions narratives facétieuses Renaissance et Baroque" in Pratiques et formes littéraires 17 (2020) online; Rolland, "La facétie dans les ruelles gallantes? Évolutions du lectorat des compilations plaisantes (1640-1660) in Les Publics de facétie (XVe-XVIIe siècles), Actes de la journée d'étude...le 1er juillet 2017 (2018) online; Gay, Bibliographie des Ouvrages relatifs a l'amour 410 "rare"; Brunet II: 1587; Nodier, Description raisonnée d'une jolie collection de livres (1844) 927.