D'ESTERNOD (Claude). L'Espadon satyrique [...] Reveu & a - Lot 110

D'ESTERNOD (Claude). L'Espadon satyrique [...] Reveu & augmenté de nouveau. Cologne [Holland], Jean d'Escrimerie, 1680. Handsome unsigned intaglio frontispiece and "parrot" finial, woodcut to title, and repeated in text. Small in-12, 6 ff. 174 pp. Copper-engraved frontispiece. Red morocco, richly decorated spine with 5 faux-nerfs, t.p. in red morocco, triple gilt fillet on covers, double gilt fillet on edges, gilt roulette on covers, gilt edges (Bauzonnet). Last 17th-century edition of the author's best work (the first edition dates from 1619). A "highly sought-after edition," says Brunet, "because it is pretty enough to enter the Elseviers collection. [...] Some copies have only VII satyres and end on page 80" [which is not the case here, XV satyres followed by the Ode satyrique d'un amoureux à sa Maistresse replacing the XVIe satyre sur l'apostasie d'un capucin]. "A poet of singular virility and rare suppleness, according to R. Gourmont, gifted with a certain grimacing lyricism. More than Mathurin Régnier, d'Esternod's rhyme is unexpected; it often comes from afar, which makes for beautiful rhymes. His language is more daring, more picturesque, full of talking words and amusing images...". Pia (Dictionnaire) notes of this play: "Free in the jest, swordfish, this 'fencer of between thighs', desolates and perhaps fades a little easily. He laughs at it but fears the clap, and strangely exorcises it by exorcising with it love". A learned libertine, Claude d'ESTERNOD was born in Salins, in 1590, and died governor of Ornans, in 1630. From the libraries of Paul GRANDSIRE (1930, no. 237), Jacques VIEILLARD (1946, no. 627) and Raymond LINARD, with their ex libris. Willems, 1944; Rahir, 2683; Brunet, II, 653. A fine and rare copy.