LETTERS from MADAME DE SEVIGNE. [With a Preface by Somerset Maugham, C.H.]: Letters from MADAME LA MARQUISE DE SEVIGNE.

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.FINE/VG.No owner inscrptn but price-clip to dw/dj.Triple,red+black decorative panelled borders,red+black letters within,to a slightly grubbed beige background to front panel of dw/dj, spine slightly darkened,some blemishes,rear panel also grubbed, blemished with publisher's advert.Negligible shelf-wear,bumping, creasing to edges and corners with a small closed tear to front,top corner - no other major nicks or tears present,miniscule bumping with reciprocal creasing to both head +foot of spine/backstrip of dw/dj.Top edge coloured dark brown,fore-edges lightly toned with faint, minimal sporadic foxing/spotting; contents bright,tight,clean,solid and sound - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners - appears unread, apart from my own collation.Bright,crisp,clean,sharp-cornered, publisher's original terracotta colour cloth boards with bright,crisp blocked gilt-edged dark brown panel at head of spine with gilt title within,author+publisher gilt letters to spine,white endpapers,another bookseller's small,adhesive address label to lower edge of front pastedown.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,3-329pp [paginated] includes contents+illus list/tables,preface by Somerset Maugham,author's introduction,table of letters written between 1648-95,4 b/w contemporary 17thC illustration reproductions - frntis included,a selective list of persons,an index of places; plus [unpaginated] half-title,subject b/w portrait frntis,and title page.
The most famous and remarkable letter writer of the 17thC,and perhaps of all time in literature was Marie de Rabutin-Chantal,Marquise de Sevigne (1626-96).Her life covered a large part of the reign of Louis XIII,as well as the scintillating period of Bourbo despotism under Le Roi Soliel.Aged 18 she married Henri,Marquis de Sevigne,a profligate Breton nobleman,who wasted her inheritance with Ninon de Lenclos and other notable ladies and was killed in a duel in 1651, leaving her with two children,Francoise Marguerite and Charles.After a few years of seclusion,she returned to customary life of French ladies of rank,being then in full possession of her beauty,dividing her time between Paris,where she attended the Court on occasion,and her country estates at Les Rochers in Brittany,and later those of her daughter,married to the Governor of Provence,at the Chateau de Grignan,near Aix.
A woman of natural cleverness,serious in her views of life and seldom superficial.The great bulk of her voluminous correspondence was addressed to her daughter,for whom she had an almost frantic fondness little short of idolatry.She loved to regale Mme. de Grignan with gossip and anecdote,and dashed off by courier often as many as three letters a week,She was gifted with a precious sense of humour, with exceptional powers of accuracy and expression and,above all,with a sympathetic character.Only in her occasional callousness to the sufferings of the lower orders,as Mr Somerset Maugham points out, does she reflect the more brutal aspect of that age of elegance.
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