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Estimate: $ 400 - $ 600
Scudéry, Madeleine de (1607-1701) Almahide; or, the Captive Queen. An Excellent New Romance, Never before in English. The Whole Work.
London: Printed by J[ohn] M[acock] for Thomas Dring, 1677.
First English edition, folio, four parts in one volume; translated by John Phillips (1631-1706); text in two columns throughout; bound in full later tree-patterned sheepskin (peeling, joints cracked; loss of endcap at head); ex libris Ebenezer Pardee with bookplate and signature on title dated 1812, first leaf of text also signed by Pardee with the note, "present from Abel Johnson"; also signed by a member of the White family in 1819; other signatures crossed out on title page (top of title torn away, reinforced along verso of bottom edge; corners of preliminary leaves torn, toned, and chipped with loss); 12¼ x 7¾ in.
Wing S-2142; ESTC R0226212.
"Yet Almahide avoids such cliched descriptions [compared to Scudéry's earlier novel Clelia] and instead immerses readers in a believable and exciting environment that, in a century filled with war and conflict, must have resonated deeply with her audience's cultural memory. Scudéry's Almahid also offers a rare case in late 17th-century fiction of a text where characters discuss the power of art and its relationship to reality." (Quoted from Gerd Bayer's Novel Horizons: The genre making of Restoration fiction, Manchester: University Press, 2016.)
