Milestones of Science Books

PERRAULT, Charles.

Histoires ou Contes du Tems Passé, avec des Moralités. . . Nouvelle édition augmentée d'une nouvelle, à la fin.

La Haye [i.e. Paris]: Coustellier, 1742.

Hardcover. Very Good. Item #003011

12mo (160 x 96 mm). [6], 137 [1] pp. Signatures: *⁴ A-E¹² F⁸ G² (-G2). Title printed in red and black, engraved frontispiece, 9 engraved vignettes by Fokke after De Sève, bound without the final blank leaf G2. Contemporary French mottled calf, plain spine with gilt-lettered red morocco label and some floral gilt decoration, marbled endpapers and edges. (slight wear to extremities and spine, corners bumped and scuffed). Text little browned, occasional spotting, brown staining and light dust- and finger-soiling. Provenance: Giancarlo Beltrame Library. Very good copy in untouched binding, collated complete. ----

Very rare Paris printing of a charmingly illustrated edition of Perrault's classic fairy tales, following the new sequence that first appeared in Jaques Desbordes' 1729 edition, but here the first to contain an illustration for "L'Adroite Princesse" (later known in English as The Distreet Princess). It is illustrated by an engraved frontispiece and 9 fine text engravings by Fokke after De Sève (and not 8 as reported by Cohen 788 and Tchemerzine V). The first edition of the tale collection was published in 1697 under the title "Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralitez" and gave Perrault international fame. Perrault has selected and re-edited eight of the most well-known folk tales for his collection. The three fairy tales "Le petit chaperon rouge", "La Belle au bois dormant" and "Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre" are included in the collection as "Little Red Riding Hood", "Sleeping Beauty" and "Cinderella" from the fairy tales known to the Brothers Grimm. "Barbebleu" meets the reader at Tieck again, "Le Maître Chat ou le Chat botté" is found in various German fairy tale collections as "studded cat". The fairy tale "Les Fées" is reminiscent of Frau Holle, "Le petit Poucet" appears as "Der kleine Däumling" by Ludwig Bechstein. While Perrault largely took over material and action from folk lore, he recreated the fairy tales linguistically in the spirit of 17th century France and "created an interesting mix of clever-refined style and naive folk-tale tone. (see H.-H. Ewers, Handbuch zur Kinder- und Jugendliteratur, III, p.12). Our edition is quite rare; we can locate but 3 copies in public libraries in the US.
Titre imprimé en noir et rouge - Adresse fictive; imprimé à Paris par Coustelier - Le front. porte le titre "Contes de ma Mère Loye" - L'épître dédicatoire à Mademoiselle (Élisabeth Charlotte d'Orléans, nièce de Louis XIV) est signée "P. Darmancour" - Contient, outre les huit contes de Perrault, "L'adroite princesse, ou, Les avantures de Finette. Nouvelle", par Marie-Jeanne L'Héritier de Villandon (texte généralement ajouté depuis aux éditions de Perrault) - Orné de 9 vignettes placées en tête de chaque conte, non signées, gravées à l'eau-forte par Fokke d'après de Sève (et non 8 comme le signalent Cohen 788 et Tchemerzine V, 180). - Visit our website for additional images and information.

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