L'amoureux Africain, ou, Nouvelle galanterie [bound with] Memoires D.M.L.D.M.

MADAME DE VILLENEUVE'S INSPIRATION | ILLICIT LIT RECOVERED FROM A COMMON SAMMELBAND 285, [3] p. | 12mo | A-M^12 | 134 x 76 mm; [2], 222, 22, [2] p. | 12mo | pi1 A-V^6 X^4(-X4) | 132 x 76 mm L'Amoureux Africain: Probably the third edition, preceded by the first of 1671 and a 1674 English translation, followed by many more, and not to be confused with the author's L'heureux esclave. Philippe Le Barbu was a fictitious name sometimes used by Abraham Wolfgang, doubtless to reduce the risk of distributing illicit literature, as was the case with the ubiquitous Pierre du Marteau imprints. ¶ Set in the late 16th century, this bestseller "is a typical example for the erotic exoticism of the French Baroque novel and was later adapted by Madame de Villedieu's Les Nouvelles africaines (1673). L'Amoureux Africain tells the story of the French nobleman Albirond, who, following his involvement in an illegal duel, is forced to leave France and to enter the 'condition of a wandring Knight,' as the English translator puts it…After his travels through Europe, which are only insinuated but not narrated, he enters a ship to Tunis on a whim. There he falls in love with a Christian slave, who turns out to be his French fiancée, Uranie. After many adventures, he is able to save her from his former friend Mahmet Lapsi, one of the Bassas of Tunis"—and a true historical figure, also known as Mohammed El-Hafsi, who received the author himself when he, too, fled France after a duel (Detering). The story would have capitalized on the taste for the exotic cultivated by reports from European explorers and missionaries abroad, introducing readers to the customs of distant lands while perpetuating racist stereotypes. ¶ All editions are scarce, both institutionally and in commerce, and very thinly held in North America (we find copies only of the 1678 edition). --- Memoires: One of at least five different 1675 Marteau editions, one of which was the first. Pierre Marteau was a prolific false imprint of the time, one of the "names that had become so widely established as false that they became a standing joke within the trade" (Treadwell). Mancini's memoir certainly could have embarrassed her husband, one of Europe's wealthiest men, and so obfuscated publication abroad may have seemed prudent. ¶ The real story of Mancini's life bears striking similarities to the heroine of Madame de Villedieu's fictional Mémoires de la vie de Henriette-Sylvie de Molière. The two were friends, and Mancini the dedicatee of Villedieu's first published work. "If Villedieu had modeled her fictional heroine on Hortense's life, Hortense in turn seems to be giving her own life a novelistic cast. The plot devices that get Villedieu's heroine out of trouble, however—disguise, repeated flight, male protection—never work quite so well in Hortense's real story. She recounts how she and her sister traveled all over Europe looking for a court where they could live and be protected from their husbands. They inevitably resume their clandestine travels, often in male disguises which, Hortense pointedly notes, never fool anyone" (Goldsmith). ¶ Mancini's memoir focuses on her flight from and failed marriage to her mentally unbalanced husband, Armand Charles de La Porte de La Meilleraye (styled Duke Mazarin after marriage). Extremely jealous and possessed with some remarkable aversion to sexuality, he was known for removing the naughty bits from art in his collection and, much more cruelly, removing the front teeth of his female servants to reduce their sexual appeal. Mancini tried repeatedly to legally separate from her husband. "The sequence of events that Hortense lays out for her readers constitutes in itself a fascinating study of the instability of marriage legislation in the 1660s and 1670s, particularly in the standards governing marital separation." But her many appeals, against challenges from her husband and even royal intervention, proved unsuccessful. So she fled. "Looking back on her dramatic escape seven years later, Hortense describes it as a move into the realm of the implausible. Most of Hortense's friends and family seem to have judged her decision as incomprehensible, if not mad." --- PROVENANCE: Both removed from the same sammelband, Mancini the first in the volume and Brémond the last. Handwritten notes on Brémond's rear fly-leaf, one of which clearly references the Mancini title, indicate a third title was once bound between them, as does the shadow of an index tab on Mancini's rear fly-leaf. Part of a gold-tooled leather index tab remains affixed to the Brémond title page, with traces of the same on the Mancini title. ¶ Early ownership inscription on Mancini title page: "A Frideric Bechler d'Augsbourg." This could be the same Friedrich Bechler hired by the Fugger banking concern in 1600, and one of Augsburg's largest property holders in 1618, though he would have been quite old. --- CONDITION: Both in modern gray paper wrappers. Brémond's with an added engraved title page and a final blank leaf. ¶ Scattered negligible marginal dampstaining in Brémond; Mancini lightly foxed and with a cocked spine. ¶ Two thirds of a recovered sammelband, indirectly linked through the work of Madame de Villedieu. Not bad. --- REFERENCES: VD17 32:701351H (Brémond); VD17 12:649967P (Mancini) ¶ Nicolas Detering, "Europe in Love: Contemporary History and Fiction in the German 'European Novel,'" Early Modern Constructions of Europe (Routledge, 2016), p. 102; Edwin P. Grobe, "The Anonymous Tunisian Novels of Sébastien Brémond," Romance Notes 6.2 (Spring 1965), p. 148-149; Michael Treadwell, "On False and Misleading Imprints in the London Book Trade, 1660-1750," Fakes and Frauds: Varieties of Deception in Print and Manuscript (Oak Knoll, 2006), p. 41; Elizabeth C. Goldsmith, "Publishing the Lives of Hortense and Marie Mancini," Going Public: Women and Publishing in Early Modern France (Cornell University, 1995), p. 33-35; Mark Häberlein, The Fuggers of Augsburg: Pursuing Wealth and Honor in Renaissance Germany (University of Virginia, 2012), "Servants and Masters: The Personnel of the Fugger Companies" (on Friedrich Bechler)