Les Caractères

La Bruyère, Jean de

Paris, Estienne Michallet, 1694

Price : €7,500

The 8^th original edition of Caractères by La Bruyère, featuring 46 new characters preserved in its binding bearing the arms of Louis-Joseph d'Albert, Duke of Luynes.

In-12 of (16) ff., 716 pp., XLIV pp.,(4) ff.Granite-tawny calf, triple gilt fillet framing the covers, gilt-stamped armorial bearings at center, ribbed spine decorated with trophies, red morocco title label, decorated edges, gilt inner dentelle, marbled edges.Contemporary binding.

165 x 100 mm.

La Bruyère. The Characters of Theophrastus translated from Greek with the Characters or customs of this century. Eighth edition, revised, corrected and enlarged.Paris, Estienne Michallet, 1694.

“First edition, the eighth, containing 1,120 characters of which 46 had not yet been published, such as Cydias, Clitophon, Antagoras, Carro-Carri. The Inaugural Speech at the French Academy is published here for the first time with the Characters. In this edition, La Bruyère sought to give his work a logical and continuous form; this idea led him to modify the order of the Characters in order to introduce a ‘subtle sequence’.” (Tchemerzine).

Tchémerzine, III, 806-808; Brunet, III, 720; Cioranescu, 37514; Catalogue La Rochebilière, no. 633; En français dans le texte, 124.

Copy showing all first issue points on pages 129, 133 and 282.

“With the Characters, La Bruyère indeed targets common passions and general types, yet always observed at the very moment of their manifestation and within the framework of a particular society. Through his depictions of manners, one senses the growing dominance of money, which was beginning to shatter the structures and traditions of the old society.But La Bruyère’s concrete and, one might say, photographic realism, so well served by an agile and incisive style, alone marks a transition between the great classics and the eighteenth century: it brings us ultimately closer to Montesquieu and Voltaire than to Molière.” (Dictionnaire des Œuvres).

“The Characters enjoyed immense popularity. The author of the Mercure Galant, de Visé, recounts that he was at court the first day the Characters appeared, and saw all around him ‘little groups bursting into laughter’. Everyone believed they recognized persons they knew. The book, first received as a pamphlet, remains in the intellectual heritage of humankind as a masterpiece of moral observation, an absolutely exceptional destiny in literary history that alone would suffice to show with what force and striking truth the author, in painting the men of his time, painted mankind of all ages.” (Ch. Louandre, Les Caractères de La Bruyère.)

In March 1688, Bussy-Rabutin wrote to the Marquis de Thermes about the Characters: “I share your view regarding the destiny of this work, that as soon as it appears it will greatly please people of wit, but that in the long run it will please even more.”

Precious copy, with wide margins, preserved in its contemporary binding with the armorials and devices of Louis-Joseph d’Albert de Luynes (1672-1758).

“Son of the Duke Louis Charles de Luynes, Great Falconer of France and Governor of Picardy, Louis-Joseph d’Albert de Luynes attached himself in 1703 to the Elector of Bavaria, who became Emperor of Germany as Charles VII. Appointed imperial privy councillor, he became extraordinary ambassador to the Court of France and Prince of the Holy Roman Empire in 1742.” (O. Hermal, pl. 1844)

This original first-issue edition is sought after in contemporary armorial binding.