Les Œuvres de Monsieur de Molière. Reveuës, corrigées & augmentées. Enrichies de Figures en Taille-douce.

MOLIÈRE (dit), Jean-Baptiste Poquelin. Les Œuvres de Monsieur de Molière. Reveuës, corrigées & augmentées. Enrichies de Figures en Taille-douce.

Paris, Denys Thierry, Claude Barbin, Pierre Trabouillet, 1682.

In-12 (162 x 97 mm), 8 volumes: T1: [13] ff, 304 pp, [2] ff. - T2: 416 pp. and [2] ff. - T3: 308 pp. and [2] ff. - T4: 296 pp. and [2] ff. - T5: 335 pp. and [1] - T6: 93 pp. and [1]-195 pp. and [2] ff. - T7: 261 pp. and [1] ff. - T8: 312 pp. Full midnight blue morocco with double framing of gilt fillets and irons at the corners encircled by a triple gilt fillet on the boards, richly decorated iron in the centre of the boards, ribbed spine richly decorated with irons, dotted lines and gilt fillets on the spine, gilt title, date and tomaison, gilt dotted edges, gilt edges, inner gilt roulette (L. Tripon).

Partly first edition.

An important edition, the first complete (Damascène Morgand), of which Brunet points out that it is ‘very difficult to find well-preserved copies’.

It is also the first illustrated edition with 30 figures engraved by J. Sauvé after Brissart. Those of Les Précieuses, L'Escorte des maris and L'Escole des femmes are not signed.

The first complete collective edition, it is the work of Jean Vivot and Charles Varlet, known as sieur de La Grange, based on Molière's manuscripts, which had already disappeared in 1673. The last two volumes present for the first time six plays in their original editions, ‘which had remained unpublished’ (Bibl. moliér.): Dom Garcie de Navarre ou Le Prince Jaloux, L'Impromptu de Versailles, Dom Juan ou le Festin de Pierre, Melicerte, Les Amans magnifiques, La Comtesse d'Escarbagnas (Tchemerzine).

One corner slightly bumped and a library mark in Volume VIII, otherwise a very good copy.

From the library of Paul Adam (1862-1920), writer and art critic who was a close friend of Jean Lorrain, a writer of decadent literature who had a duel with Marcel Proust in 1897; his bookplate in Volume 1. Several ex-donations; on the title pages of volumes 1, 2, 7. Period inscription on the first leaf of volume 1. Old bookshop stamp of 152 rue de Paris in volume 8.

Damascène Morgand, vol. 3, p.258 ; Bibl. moliér., n°277 ; Tchemerzine, vol. 8, p.359.