Les Œuvres
First continuously paginated edition, bound at the time for Jacques Reynier, Treasurer of France in Lyon and relative of the Grolier family.
From the libraries of Edouard Rahir and Dr. Lucien Graux, with ex-libris.
Octavo, (12) ff., 272 ff.
Gilt flexible vellum, double gilt fillet framing, central medallion, large corner pieces, central medallion bearing the motto “Ie Scay qui nerre”, smooth decorated spine, gilt edges. Contemporary binding.
172 x 110 mm.
Du Bellay, Joachim. The French Works of Joachim du Bellay, Nobleman from Anjou, & Excellent Poet of this time. Revised, & newly augmented with several poems not previously printed.
Paris, Frederic Morel, 1574.
First edition of the Works of Du Bellay with continuous pagination and second collected edition, partly original, “more complete than the first published in 1569” (De Backer, 312).
The volume comprises the first part of the works.
It includes: The Defense and Illustration of the French Language (printed in roman type), the Olive, the Lyric Verses, the Collection of Poetry, and the Two Books of the Aeneid.
“In barely a decade, he composed, in French and in Latin, an abundant and diverse poetic oeuvre, constantly innovative: he was the author of the first literary manifesto in French letters, the first collection of French love sonnets, the first collection of lyric odes, the brilliant translator of Virgil; he decisively broadened the range of the sonnet in the Antiquities and the Regrets, became one of the best Neo-Latin poets in Europe, and then finally transformed himself into a leading political poet. He was not merely the brilliant second of the Pléiade, in Ronsard’s shadow: he was one of the greatest and most innovative French poets.
His varied and constantly renewed poetry charms with its plasticity. For Michel Deguy, he is “one of the very first modern poets: torn, disjointed, at the juncture of a declining world of Symbol, and a world of busy idleness where the poet, deserted by his muse, belongs to his lack of status” (Robert Melançon. The Sixteenth Century).
Precious copy, ruled, of fine provenance.
It is preserved in its superb ivory vellum period binding.
In the center of each cover: “Je scay qui nerre,” the motto of Jacques Reynier, treasurer of France in Lyon, who had married Jacqueline Grolier, granddaughter of the famous bibliophile Jean Grolier and granddaughter of the poetess Jacqueline Stuard.
The volume contains a handwritten note by Edouard Rahir.
Provenance: Edouard Rahir (bookplate and note, sale V, 1937, lot 1328) and Dr. Lucien-Graux (bookplate, part V, 1958, lot 89).
