May 05, 2022 - Sale 2603

Sale 2603 - Lot 78

Unsold
Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 8,000
de Herberay des Essarts, Nicolas (died c. 1557)
Le Premier Livre de la Cronique du Tresvaillant & Redouté Dom Flores de Grece.

Paris: [par Estienne Groulleau] pour Jan Longis, 1552.

First edition, folio, woodcut printer's device to title, both works with text ruled in a red throughout, top corner of title trimmed away, affecting the last three letters of "LIVRE," repaired and in ink facsimile, title remargined along both vertical margins, illustrated with seventy woodcuts printed from thirty-eight blocks in the text, with final blank;

[Bound with] L'Histoire Aethiopique de Heliodorus, Paris: Pour Estienne Groulleau, 1559; the two bound in full speckled calf, title to spine, headcaps chipped with loss, aeg., 12 1/4 x 7 3/4 in.

Despite the title, de Herberay's work is an original romance, and not a translation. This work is a continuation of the chivalric adventures of Amadis de Gaul.

I: Mortimer French 272; II: Mortimer French 271.

From the Ken Rapoport Collection.