PASCAL, Blaise - Lot 29

Lot 29
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Estimation :
10000 - 15000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 17 693EUR
PASCAL, Blaise - Lot 29
PASCAL, Blaise The provincials or letters written by Louis de Montalte, to a provincial of his friends and to the RR. PP. Iesuites ; sur le sujet de la Morale et de la Politique de ces Pères. A Cologne, Chés Pierre de la Vallée, 1657. 1 volume in-4 (239 x 180 mm), full brown granite calf, spine decorated with a grotesque decoration, decorated edges, edges jaspées (binding of the time). ORIGINAL EDITION of the 18 letters, bound with the general title, the 3 warning leaves and with the refutation of the answer to the twelfth letter. A copy of the very first printing with the seventeenth provincial letter in 8 pages ("the most sought-after printing" according to Tchémerzine) whereas it is in 12 pages in the second printing; the title and the warning also bear the marks of the first printing: "Lettres escrites" instead of the corrected version "Lettres écrites" and the 22 lines added to the warning of the second printing are absent here (it is thus here printed before March 1657). "The most widely read work of its time, the Provinciales helped impose a classical art of writing" (Jean Mesnard, En français dans le texte). They are, as Voltaire states in Le siècle de Louis XIV: "the first book of genius that one saw in prose". Copy enriched with the engraved portrait of Blaise Pascal by Edelinck, the engraved portrait of Fr. Escobar and the following pieces: Lettre de Monsieur Arnauld, Docteur de Sorbonne, à un de ses amis, 4 pp. Letter of a theologian to a person of condition, 16 pp. Letter from a lawyer at the Parliament to one of his Friends, 8 pp. Autograph letter signed from Adolphe Bordes to Anatole France, containing bibliographical considerations and ending with "whatever you say, you are richer than me" (February 17, 1911, 4 pp.). Superb and very precious copy gathering the Provinciales and the work of Arnaud whose defense is at the origin of Pascal's writing project. The date of 1659 and the inscription in pen on the title, of Pascal's name misspelled "Mr Pasqual", reveal most certainly a contemporary reading of the text. It comes from the library of Anatole FRANCE, and remains one of the very few listed in a strictly period binding, here decorated in the grotesque style. Traces of folds on the last leaf of the twelfth letter, a few signatures foxed, small stamp scratched and now illegible on the title. One leaf missing in the outer margin, pale wetness to one leaf and a few leaves with small stains. Fine small restorations at the head and tail, at part of the spines and at the corners. Spines cracked in places. PROVENANCE: De Bailleul (manuscript bookplate). Count Alfred Auffray (1808-1861), bibliophile from Rouen (note in his hand, library sold in 1863). Anatole France (ex-libris and note in his hand praising the quality of the copy). Charles Hayoit (Sotheby's, 1st part, n°109, sold for 13000 F). Tchemerzine-Scheler V, 62-65. PMM 140. In French in the text 96.
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