Études de la nature
First edition.
A very finel copy preserved in its contemporary binding.
3 volumes in 3 duodecimo volumes of: I/ (2) ff., 623 pp., 1 folding plate; II/ (2) ff., 631 pp. and 3 folding plates; III/ (2) ff., 574 pp. and 1 figure.
Tree calf, triple gilt fillet framing the covers, smooth spines decorated with gilt fillets and fleurons, red morocco labels for titles and volume numbering, gilt fillet on the edges, gilt decorative roll on the inside edges, gilt edges. Contemporary binding.
166 x 99 mm.
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques Henri. Studies of Nature.
Paris, Printed by Monsieur, at Jean-Pierre Didot le jeune, 1784.
First edition of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s “Studies of Nature”, “one of the most remarkable books in the French language” (F. Brunetière).
It is adorned with a frontispiece, bound in the third volume, a map of the Atlantic hemisphere, and 3 folding botanical plates.
Tchemerzine, V, 647; Quérard, 364; Cioranescu, 58853.
“The Studies of Nature are one of the most remarkable books in the French language. Its style is incomparably charming.” (F. Brunetière).
“The Studies of Nature” had a real influence on French literature and philosophy.
Daniel Mornet rightly noted Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s fundamental contribution to the description of nature. “Indeed, it was Bernardin de Saint-Pierre who first painted with lasting success the picturesque beauty of the external world.” This new art of description, as is known, would not fail to influence French Romanticism, that for example of a Chateaubriand or a Lamartine” (C. Duflo).
The fourteen Studies composing the work are successively devoted to the demonstration of the beneficence of nature, the principles of science and the general physical laws of nature, and finally to its moral laws as applied to man considered as an individual, then as a social being.
Here one will find splendid landscape descriptions, among the first in French literature, at once precise, colorful, and imbued with a panicked sense of nature’s power, which, while belonging to the vogue of the “descriptive genre” at the end of the century, foreshadow Chateaubriand.
In so doing, he invents the modern description of nature, opening a lineage that stretches from Chateaubriand to Saint-John Perse.
Precious and beautiful copy, large margins, internally pure, printed on Dutch paper, preserved in its attractive period tree calf binding.
