CURIOSA. [MARECHAL, Sylvain]. Pornophile. Contes saugrenus. - Lot 169

CURIOSA. [MARECHAL, Sylvain]. Pornophile. Contes saugrenus. On the Bassora print, 1789, Samuel-Isaac-Josédiah Smithson, bookseller in Jersey, 1885. In-12, 198 pp, [1] f. (table). Printed on fine laid paper. Nineteenth-century cream half-percaline à la Bradel and with corners, brown title-piece, gilt fleurons and date, printed yellow cover and spine preserved. Rare reissue of this collection of "rather witty, indévot and licentious" prose tales (Gay, I, 717 for the original), attributed to Sylvain Maréchal (1750-1803) by Paul Lacroix and Charles Nodier. Illustrated with 4 woodcut vignettes, one on the title page (repeated on the cover), one at the head of the preface, one at the head of the first chapter and one on the 4th cover. Nicknamed "the man without God", Maréchal was a virulent atheist republican, writer-poet and pamphleteer, precursor of the strike and anarchism. He is also known as the principal editor of the journal Les Révolutions de Paris. Belgian bookseller Henry Kistemaeckers wrote of this work: "A small volume appeared, which circulated 'under the cloak', and was fought over in the Palais and in the world of collectors, at a price of gold. It was a reprint of a very rare eighteenth-century collection of eleven very short, very literary tales, in the style of Voltaire's tales. The great attraction of this reprint was a curious, humorous yet highly irreverent Preface (...) a kind of little pamphlet that Paul Louis Courrier himself would not have disowned (...) the publisher's name and address were apocryphal. The prefatory author was never known, but it was generally agreed that a magistrate was the author of this foreword." (Kistemaeckers, Mes procès littéraires, souvenirs d'un éditeur, 1923). Binding very slightly soiled, but a good copy. Les Sérails de Londres, ou les Amusements Nocturnes. Contenant les scènes qui y sont journellement représentées, les portraits et la description des courtisanes les plus célèbres.... A Bruxelles, chez H. Kistemaeckers, [1870]. In-16, XV-249 pp. and [1] f. in contemporary Bradel cream half-percaline with corners, brown title page, gilt fleurons and date, gilt head, untrimmed, cover and spine preserved (spine browned). Reprint of the Paris ed., Barba, 1801. - LA FIZELIÈRE (Albert de). Histoire de la crinoline au temps passé. Paris, A. Aubry, 1859. In-18, [2] ff. (fx-title, title), 106 pp. [1] ff. (table), fawn half-percaline with late 19th-century Bradel corners, brown title page, gilt fleuron and date, illustrated cover preserved (leaves slightly browned). Total of 3 volumes.