Nov 11, 2008 - Sale 2162

Sale 2162 - Lot 9

Unsold
Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE, JACQUES-HENRI. Studies of Nature . . . Translated by Henry Hunter, D.D. Engraved frontispiece; 3 folding engraved botanical plates; folding engraved world map of the Atlantic Hemisphere. Half-titles. 5 volumes. 8vo, contemporary speckled calf, flat spines attractively gilt with morocco lettering pieces, few joints starting, spines slightly brittle and rubbed; scattered light foxing, frontispiece browned, plates and map offset, early owner's pencil notes on some endpapers. London: C. Dilly, 1796

Additional Details

first complete edition in english of Bernardin's exposition of his theories of nature as the manifestation of divine providence. Volume 5 contains the first edition of this translation of Paul et Virginie, his wildly popular romance of doomed love on an island in the Indian Ocean, "one of the literary phenomena of the age" (DLB). Hunter's version of the novel was preceded by that of Helen Maria Williams in 1795.