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an old brown book sitting on top of a white surfacean old book with a picture of two people on it
ALDE

66 - CYRANO DE BERGERAC (Savinien de).
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Estimate €2,000 - €3,000
Sale commission
Description
CYRANO DE BERGERAC (Savinien de). Miscellaneous Works. Paris, Charles de Sercy, 1654. – *La Mort d’Agrippine*. Ibid., 1654. 2 parts in one quarto volume, marbled calfskin, decorated spine, smooth edges (contemporary binding). Extremely rare first editions of two of Cyrano de Bergerac’s (1619–1655) principal works, published a year before his death and dedicated to his patron, the Duke of Arpajon. The Œuvres diverses bring together the ‘first follies of [his] youth’, as he writes in the dedicatory epistle. They consist of two parts. The first part contains the *Lettres*: forty-seven prose texts inspired in turn by poetry, satire or love, brimming with exuberance, audacity and ingenuity. The second part contains the prose comedy *Le Pédant joué*, a masterpiece of whimsical excess, ‘of prodigious lexical richness and inexhaustible comic verve’, according to René Pintard. Admired by Molière, this play provided him with several brilliant ideas and some of his most famous scenes. The title page is adorned with Charles de Sercy’s mark and the dedicatory epistle bears the coat of arms of the Duke of Arpajon. *La Mort d’Agrippine* is literally impossible to find in its first edition. This tragedy by Cyrano, of which it is not known for certain whether or not it was performed at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in 1653, was swiftly banned for impiety: it is, in fact, famous for the declarations of atheism made in it by the conspirator Sejanus. Cyrano’s play is reminiscent of *The Death of Seneca* by his friend Tristan L’Hermite, and yet, as Antoine Adam observes: ‘However vigorous Tristan’s work may have been, Cyrano’s surpasses it, just as a work of genius may surpass a work of great talent. Cyrano has a knack for taking situations to extremes, for driving passions to a point bordering on frenzy’. From the Loynel library, with bookplate. A copy without the author’s portrait, which, according to Madeleine Alcover, ‘is missing from most copies of Œuvres diverses’. The frontispiece of *La Mort d’Agrippine* is also missing. The upper hinge is split; there are losses to the endpapers, corners and one block; scattered foxing and water stains; in *La Mort d’Agrippine*, 2 ff. lim. are worn with small marginal losses and minor marginal worm damage on the final leaves. Having noted these defects, it should be emphasised that apparently no copy of *La Mort d’Agrippine* has come up for sale since the records began, and that only three copies of the *Œuvres diverses* have appeared on the market since 2008 (in ALDE auctions), all three of which lacked the portrait. Tchemerzine-Scheler, II, 709, 704, 700.
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About the sale Fine antique books – A library in the Languedoc
Auction location
Auction time 10/20/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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