Œuvres diverses

4 volumes in-12, red morocco, triple gilt fillet framing the covers, smooth decorated spine, title and volume labels in olive morocco, gilt fillet on edges, gilt inner roll, gilt edges. Morocco binding of the period.

164 x 95 mm.

Marivaux, Pierre Carlet de. Diverse Works of Monsieur de Marivaux, of the French Academy, containing The Life of the Author, The Modern Don Quixote, The Iliad in Burlesque Verse, The Education of a Prince, The Bogged-Down Carriage & some other posthumous pieces by the Author.

Paris, Duchesne, 1765.

Rare first collected edition of Marivaux’s Works in period morocco.

It contains several important works by Marivaux.

“What makes Marivaux one of the greatest French authors is this constantly painful sincerity, and yet so master of itself that one could see a discipline and almost a playfulness in a disorder of sensitivity” (Edmond Jaloux).

When the Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns saw a revival between 1714 and 1716, around Mme Dacier’s translation of Homer, he sided with Fontenelle and Houdar de La Motte. He took part in the polemic through articles in the Mercure, and with The Travestied Iliad, a burlesque poem where the spirit of Scarron combines with an insolent cheerfulness and a uniquely personal realistic energy, also found in the novel The Travestied Telemachus (approval granted in 1714, published in Amsterdam in 1736), this time a takeoff of Fénelon.

In 1720, Marivaux turned to the theater.

According to D’Alembert, he was little satisfied with the way the French acted.

By its nature, Marivaux’s dialogue is in perfect harmony with the talent of actors trained in the “commedia dell’arte,” who are more spontaneous and much more flexible to direction than the French ever would be. Thanks to them, Marivaux brought to the theater a singular, fresh, new tone and the renewal of dramaturgy that had been awaited since Molière. He created the comedy of love, bringing to the forefront the couple of young lovers, and choosing as the subject of his plays the story of romantic feeling. The servants often form a parallel pair of lovers to that of the masters in the comic register; quicker and more perceptive, they act as confidants, reveal the love that reason, modesty, or fear of commitment wish to keep secret, and drive the action. Their main role is to create situations where the lovers are forced to overcome these inner obstacles. Though Marivaux never repeats himself, all his comedies end with the triumph of love; for he is convinced, as he writes in The Life of Marianne, that “only feeling can give us some reliable news about ourselves.” In his plays as in his novels, Marivaux makes the exploration of the tiniest, ever-renewed “movements” of sensitivity his subject. In the three literary domains Marivaux explored: theater, novel, and periodicals, depicting the movements of the heart and expressing the Self, uncovering the truth of the being beneath all its masks, the variety and naturalness of tone, renewing techniques particular to each genre and their language, were his essential concern. At the end of his career, Marivaux noted that “the depth of the human mind keeps on increasing among men” (“The Mirror”). That is what makes him an author for our time. (Catherine Bonfils).

Very beautiful copy bound in period morocco.