COPY ON CHINA - Lot 107

COPY ON CHINA LESAGE (Alain-René). LE DIABLE BOITEUX. With a notice by M. Anatole France. Paris, Alphonse Lemerre, 1878. Two volumes, in-12 (XX pp, 232 pp // 2 ff, 260 pp), paperback. A fine copy. First edition with preface by A. France. Copy on Chine (n° 29/60) countersigned by the publisher. Palau, 136589: excerpt (2 vols./4) from Lesage's Œuvres; he also mentions a frontispiece and engravings that we do not have. Lesage reprinted Guevara's Spanish novel El Diablo cojuelo, published in Madrid in 1641. A "picaresque novel" too rich in adventures, but too imbued with purely verbal humor. A "voyeur" novel in which Asmodeus lifts the roofs of Madrid, providing the pretext for numerous intimate tableaux... He thus perpetuates the taste for Labruyère-style portraits.