Mar 08, 2018 - Sale 2468

Sale 2468 - Lot 75

Unsold
Estimate: $ 8,000 - $ 12,000
(EROTICA.) [Millot, Michel; and L'Ange, Jean, attributed to.] L'Escole des Filles, ou La Philosophie des Dames. [32], 184 pages, including etched additional title. 12mo, 130x69 mm, mid-19th-century shagreen gilt with scrollwork tooling on covers, flat spine similarly decorated; scattered light marginal foxing, additional title cropped in outer margin, later owner's inscription in lower margin, repaired clean tear in 2 leaves of the table of contents. 19th-century French owner's manuscript bibliographical notes on 5 leaves bound at end. Bookplate of Raoul Simonson. "Fribourg: chez Roger Bon Temps" [i. e., Amsterdam], 1676

Additional Details

third(?) edition of the first work of pornographic fiction in french, consisting of dialogues in which a naïve young virgin is thoroughly enlightened about sexual pleasure by her experienced older female cousin. The 1655 first edition was suppressed on publication; all but a few copies were burned, and none now survive. Kearney, A History of Erotic Literature, pages 29-34. This edition not in Dutel, who records 3 17th-century editions after the first of 1655. It appears to fall between his A-351 ("imprimé à Fribourg, chez Roger Bon Temps, L'An 1668") and A-352 ("Suivant la Copie imprimée à Paris, 1667", which he dates to circa 1685).

bound with: Comedie Galante de Monsieur D[e]. B[ussy]. 24 pages. "Paris" [but probably from the same press as L'Escole des Filles], 1676.

and: ARETINO, PIETRO. Dialogue de l'Arétin, où les vies, et faits de Lais & Lamia, Courtesans de Rome, sont déduites. Traduict d'Italien en François. 96 pages. Np, later 17th century? French version of an excerpt from Aretino's 1534-36 Ragionamenti, the prototypical collection of erotic dialogues. Cf. Dutel A-282 (202 pages, "vers 1650").