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NABECOR ENCHERES
82
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DU LAURENS (Henri-Joseph) – *Le compère Matthieu ou les biga…
See original version (French)
82
-
DU LAURENS (Henri-Joseph) – *Le compère Matthieu ou les biga…
See original version (French)
Estimate €40 - €60
Voluntary lot
Description
DU LAURENS (Henri-Joseph) – *Le compère Matthieu ou les bigarrures de l’esprit humain*. London, Published by the Company, 1775; 8vo, IV-236 + 272 + 270 pp., contemporary marbled full calf bindings, plain spines with decorative lettering, marbled edges. All 3 volumes. This is his most famous work. Described by Bouillet as a licentious novel, it was initially attributed to Voltaire, as were most of the author’s writings. Gustave Vapereau is not particularly complimentary either: ‘A cynical novel, full of paradoxes against morality and common sense, combined with the basest trivialities ’. Diderot, however, declared it the most important work to have appeared since Rabelais’s *Pantagruel*. Its modern humour, indeed—akin to Sterne’s in its digressions, and to Rabelais’s and Voltaire’s in its comic inventions in the service of scathing criticism—deserves to be rediscovered.
See original version (French)
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