Paris, De l’imprimerie de Monsieur, 1785.
2 parts in 2 volumes 4to [328 x 245 mm] of : : I/ (2) ll., 309 pp., 13 full-page plates ; II/ (2) ll., 297 pp., (7) pp., 12 full-page plates.
Red straight-grained half-morocco, spines ribbed and decorated with mosaic patterns. Later binding.
Magnificent typographical edition, printed on “papier vélin d’Annonay” from the Montgolfier manufacture.
This superb edition executed under the supervision of P-Fr. Didot, with new characters created specially, was initially supposed to contain the set of engravings of Monnet and Tilliard illustrating the text.
However the editors, in order to harmonize the papers, rejected this set of engravings and had a new one engraved by Moitte.
That copy is among the perfect copies containing the 24 engravings by Moitte.
The foreword also stipulated that Didot had saved few copies of the sets of engravings colored or painted in gouache but that to obtain one of these copies it was necessary to register.
Cohen forgot to mention that two kinds of colored copies existed: the ones simply colored and the ones painted in gouache.
The present copy is illustrated with a portrait of Fenelon and 24 engravings by Moitte painted in gouache at the time, bordered with painted frames.
Each title bears the arms of Monsieur, the brother of King Louis XVI, wood engraved after Choffard.
The Adventures of Telemachus is an occasional work. Fenelon wrote it while he was educating the duke of Bourgogne.
A precious copy, one of the very few copies entirely painted in gouache at the time, with the proofs before the letters.
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