Paris, Panckoucke, Hôtel de Thou, 1779-1780.
4 parts bound in 5 8vo [200 x 128 mm] volumes. Full citron morocco, sumptuous gilt border decorated with birds and lyres around the covers, flat spines decorated with bird tools, red and green morocco lettering pieces, gilt inner border, gilt edges. Superb contemporary Parisian bindings attributable to Derome le Jeune made according to the authors’ instructions.
Royal dedication copy.
First edition of the first modern work of education focused on the truth, the reality and the beautiful by one of the most famous women of letters from the 18th century, to which Michaud’s ‘Biographie universelle’ dedicates 23 folio pages.
Barbier, IV, 686 ; Solleinne, Bibliothèque dramatique, II, 2254.
The ‘Théâtre à l’usage des jeunes personnes’ was famous all over Europe ; the work was immediately translated in Russia and in Germany. Madame de Genlis was congratulated by several European sovereigns and by all the scholars, with a specific mention for the special praise of D’Alembert, Marmontel and Fréron.
Successively adulated, disgraced, admired, slandered, Madame de Genlis remains one of the most interesting characters from these troubled times.
Excellent teacher, inventor of the modern education focused on the truth, the reality and the beautiful, eager to awake the young minds, she deserves this judgment of Stendhal who considered her as “a woman of extraordinary intelligence”.
Exceptional and marvelous dedication copy, one of the very few printed on large vellum paper, sumptuously bound in contemporary citron morocco with wide borders decorated according to the author’s instructions with lyres – the instrument that allowed her to enter the court- and with couples of birds probably intended for her royal pupil, the 7-year-old future king Louis-Philippe.
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