GUILLERAGUES

Lot 23
Go to lot
Estimation :
10000 - 15000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 26 539EUR
GUILLERAGUES
Portuguese letters translated into French. Paris, Claude Barbin, 1669. In-12, brown granite calf, spine decorated, red speckled edges (period binding). First edition, very rare. The Portuguese Letters, models par excellence of the passion for love, occupy an important place in the literature of the 17th century. Published anonymously, they were attributed to different authors and it is only at the beginning of the XXth century that the discovery of a manuscript in the National Library allowed to know with certainty the author and to restore the masterpiece to Gabriel-Joseph de La Vergne, count of Guilleragues: [....] it was obviously necessary that the work remained anonymous to pass for the authentic correspondence of a nun seduced and abandoned by a French officer (Frédéric Deloffre in En français dans le texte, n°109). Guilleragues, born in Bordeaux in 1628, was the secretary of the prince of Conti. Appointed ambassador in Turkey in 1679, he died in Constantinople in 1685. He frequented, with Gourville and Madame de Sévigné, the literary elite of the kingdom: La Rochefoucauld, Racine or Boileau, who dedicated his fifth Epistle to him. These letters were incredibly successful: a large number of editions were published as early as 1669 and Replies were printed the same year in Paris. From the Marcel Duchemin library, with bookplate. Restoration to the title. Light spotting at the top of several leaves, with minor restoration to some of them. Rubbing to the binding with the top cover restored.
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue