Le Caresme prenant, et les jours gras de Tabarin & d’Ysabelle
A limited edition of 62 copies.
Prestigious provenance: Edouard Moura; Rob de Billy.
8vo of 14 pp., (2) blk. ll., 16 pp. 19th century red morocco, ribbed spine, gilt edges. Hardy Mesnil.
170 x 107 mm.
Le Caresme prenant, et les jours gras de Tabarin & d’Ysabelle. Discours remply de questions, demandes et subtilitez extraordinaires et Tabariniques. Ensemble un petit Compendium de ses rencontres, plaisanteries, & farces ordinaires assaisonnées, & faonnées à la sauce de ses inventions…
[Paris, Auguste Veinant et Jannet], 1622 [Crapelet, rue de Vaugirard, 12 février 1850].
Suivi de : Les iustes plaintes su Sieur Tabarin. Sur les troubles et divisions de ce temps.
1621.
A precious limited edition to 62 copies.
"This jest, heavily inspired by Tabarin's salt, must be quite rare, since it remained unknown to the author of *The Pleasant Researches of a Serious Man on a Jester*, who also made no mention of another short work of the same kind that will soon be published.
For a few years, Tabarin enjoyed enough popularity in Paris that one can say that this fashionable jester stirred the more or less joyful wit of the brilliant minds of his time. Their writings, generally consisting of only a few pages, could only have a very short existence; thus, few have survived to this day."
So many factors contribute to the destruction of the original pieces that it is desirable that those discovered by chance be reproduced in small numbers, if only to save the text from complete oblivion.
In concluding *Le Caresme-prenant*, the author announces the imminent publication of a larger book, in which all of Tabarin's jokes will be described in a spirited manner. This is likely the *Recueil general des œuvres Tabariniques*, of which he may well have been the author. In any case, even if the author remains unknown today, we must infer from the above quotation that the first edition of the Collection dates from 1622. As for the song that concludes the reprint of Lenten-prenant, it is taken from the Cabinet des Chansons plaisantes et recreatives, published in Paris in 1631. Since it falls squarely within our subject matter and is quite little known, we thought it appropriate to include it here.
