L'Inceste Innocent Histoire Véritable.

A Paris, chez Toussainct Quinet, 1644. 8vo. 4 leaves. 475 pages. 1 leaf. Contemporary limp vellum. First Edition (copy of third issue with a title page dated 1644) of one of the first novels of the Norman playwright Desfontaines (1610-1652). The plot of this story of involuntary incest is inspired by the popular legend set in Ecouis in Normandy, but which was also told by the Italian storyteller Bandello and which is also present in the Heptameron of Margaret of Navarre. It explains how a young gentleman, believing he is meeting a young lady in his mother's service, finds himself sleeping with his own mother. From this intercourse a daughter was born, whom he would later marry without knowing who her real parents were. Engraved frontispiece depicting a tomb with the following epitaph (in French): 'Here lies the child, here lies the father Here lies the sister, here lies the brother Here lies the wife and the husband And there are only two bodies here.' There appear to be three distinct versions of the same edition: the first issue of 1638, another dated 1639, and ours of 1644, all three with the same number of pages and the same privilege. It is an extremely rare book, all versions combined. Worldcat lists only six copies of our 1644 print run in public collections around the world, one of which is incomplete. In France, only the two copies of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France and Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal (CCFR) are located. Quentin Beauchart indicates that Madame de Verrüe owned a copy of the book, bound in red morocco. The catalogue of the Duc d'Aumale states that 'Desfontaines is better known as a playwright than as a novelist; but it is in any case very obscure and very worthy of being so' (for the copy preserved at Chantilly of the edition dated 1638). Small marginal gaps in the engraving of the frontispiece, which has been anciently reinforced. Some traces of light waterstains towards the end of the volume. Else, a good copy.