RABELAIS, François. The works of maistre François Rabelais, - Lot 199

Lot n° 199
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RABELAIS, François. The works of maistre François Rabelais, - Lot 199
RABELAIS, François. The works of maistre François Rabelais, doctor of medicine. Containing five books of the life, facts and heroic sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel, plus the Pantagrueline Prognostication or Almanac for the perpetual year with the Epistle of the Limosin excoriator and the Philosophical Crescent. Printed following the first edition censored in the year 1552 [Paris ? 1626]. 2 volumes in-8 of 605 - 4011 [i. e. 1104], [24] pp. Mottled tan calf, spines decorated (period binding). A pleasant copy in its contemporary binding, with restored headbands and minor wear. Particularly interesting edition, according to Plan, "in that it interrupts the series of forgeries signed Jean Martin and that it is, in a way, the first one composed on original versions of the separate books since 1553. Let us say at once that it is printed with a great carelessness, that it contains almost at each line several misprints, that the pagination is very fanciful and that the page-setting presents in various places interferences. It should not, however, be despised, and Le Duchat has often made use of it. It was, indeed, made on good texts and, in spite of its typographical faults, could give precious indications to the editor of 1711." (cf. P. P. Plan. Bibliographie rabelaisienne, 1905). Still according to Plan: "The printed title was inspired by that of the edition of J. Martin, without date (n°122); it announces the Profnostication Pantagrueline ou Almanach pour l'An perpetuel, with the Epistre du Limofin Excoriateur and the Crème Philosophale, although these pieces do not appear in the volume. But the text follows, for the first two books, the edition of Pierre de Tours without date (n°86), minus the Prognostication; for the third fourth, the editions of Fezandat 1552, and for the fifth, that of Ian Martin, 1565. The typography, rather elegant, seems to us to be Parisian. Tchemerzine notes a portrait of Rabelais by Michel Lasne, not present in this copy. Plan, 127; Screech, 93; Tchemerzine, V, 316.
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