La Vie et Les Opinions de Tristram Shandy, traduites de l'Anglois de Stern par [translated by] M. Frenais

A Yorck, et se trouve a Paris, Chez Volland, 1787 Complete in four volumes. Apparently the first two volumes are the second edition of the French translation and the second two volumes ("Suite") are the first edition of the French translation. [1787] half-title, xxiv, 256, portrait frontispiece by Pierre-Nicolas Ransonnette + [1787, a first French edition(?)] half-title, "Lettres d'Yorick A Eliza, et d'Eliza A Yorick. Augmentee de l'Eloge d'Eliza, par M. l'Abbe Raynal. Chez Volland. 1787", half-title, xvi, 77; [1785] half-title, 327, 2 plates (Walter, Toby, Trim and boots. Plate 2: Walter buttoning his breeches with newly born Tristram); [1787] no half-title, iv, Errata, 284, 1 plate (Slops wig catching fire); [1785] no half-title, 286 pages + 4 pages of table of chapters, 2 plates (Plate 1, page 59: The Ass. Plate 2 page 128 Uncle Toby in the Sentry box). Contemporary ownership signatures and later engraved armorial bookplates on front endpapers and some half-titles. c. 10 lines of contemporary ink notes at back of volume 1 in neat ink hand. 10 x 17.5 cm. Full, contemporary mottled calf. Spines with contrasting red labels (missing from volume 1 and chipped on volume 3). All volumes rubbed with bumped & worn corners (volume 2 with split hinges-still firm- some short worm-holes and cracked slightly damaged spine; volume 3 slightly worn at head of spine; volume 4 upper hinge slightly split near top but very firm). Possibly a made up set due to the later date of the two earlier volumes, but corresponds exactly with the set (Accession number CCWSH:0489a) held by the Laurence Sterne Trust. The first French translation of the first two volumes, by Joseph-Pierre Frénais was published in 1776, and the first edition of the translation of the second two volumes ("Suite"), by Antoine Gilbert Griffet de Labaume (1756- 1805, "M.D.L.B."), was first published in 1785. In that same year 1785 another translation of the "Suite" of Tristram Shandy was published by the Marquis de Bonnay, which appears to be the second two volumes on offer here and became the standard edition in French of "Tristram Shandy" during the following 50 years. Provenance:-Faverly. Then A.Fester, doctor, 1866. Then (bookplates) "Ex Libris D.Laport -liber horas vincit". One of the masterpieces of 18th century English literature, composed by Laurence Sterne (1713-1768). Sterne rode the early 18th to the early 19th century wave of Anglomania in France evident both from the number of translated editions of his works and his profound influence on Balzac & other contemporary French authors. A pupil of Choffard, Ransonnette was a draftsman and engraver who provided many of the plates for the Encyclopedia of Diderot and d'Alembert. English Short Title Catalog, T230928.. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Good.