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an old book sitting on top of a white table next to a white wallan old book with a black cover sitting on top of a white tablean open book sitting on top of a table next to a cup of coffee
Maître Paul PASTAUD

1938 - PHILOMNESTE (Gabriel PEIGNOT, known as G. P.). Philological …
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Estimate €40 - €50
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Description
PHILOMNESTE (Gabriel PEIGNOT, known as G. P.). Philological Amusements, or Miscellany of All Kinds; second edition, revised, corrected and expanded. Dijon, Victor Lagier, 1824. In-8, half-creme calf, plain spine, title page (contemporary binding). Spine worn. Foxing. “The 1824 volume is less a new edition than a new work under the same title, and a much more substantial one. The selection of material is better, by the author’s own admission, and the printing is infinitely more meticulous. Eight copies were printed from the first edition on vellum paper. The latest edition was printed in a run of 2,000 copies, of which 500 were on fine square paper and 20 on large vellum paper. It is a singular collection that brings together the most striking contrasts, and which, beneath the guise of frivolity, conceals genuine learning and provides a wealth of useful or curious notions. It covers everything; you will find acrostics and astrotomy [?], rhyming couplets and statistics, moral philosophy and magic squares, Latin and French verses—anacyclic, battelés, broken, macaronic, Leonine, burlesque, rhopalic, etc.; followed by well-written entries on all the major discoveries and their inventors; articles on entertaining physics; linguistics and bibliography; emblems drawn from the three kingdoms of nature, geographical information; followed by a chronology of the most famous writers arranged by subject; and finally, the most bizarre and outlandish curiosities, alongside the most important and accurate documents. If ever a book has deserved the title *Curious and Instructive Miscellany*, it is certainly this one. ‘A young man who had read this volume carefully could, in society, pass for a scholar without lapsing into pedantry, and would even often astonish the most learned of people.’ Quérard (Supercheries, III, 112.) Ex-libris JM.
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About the sale MONTIGNAC – 31st BOOK SALE – Day 4 of 4 – Nos. 1643 to 1970
Auction location
Auction time 08/22/2026 at 11:00 AM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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