Le Libertin de qualité
One of Mirabeau’s most erotic texts, complete of the famous 7 erotic plates.
Le Libertin de qualité : “It was probably the first time that a fictional character had been created based on a man who lives off women” (Apollinaire).
A very fine wide-margined copy, complete of the 7 famous plates, preserved in its contemporary binding.
Rare.
12mo of (3) ll., 317 pp., and 7 plates. Title and text framed in a double filet, without frontispiece and last leaf for the binder.
Contemporary brown calf, decorated smooth spine, gilt frame on covers, some wear, some foxing.
166 x 105 mm.
Mirabeau, Honoré Gabriel Riquetti, comte de (1749-1791). Le libertin de qualité, ou Confidences d'un prisonnier au château de Vincennes écrites par lui-même, avec figures.
Stamboul, De l’Imprimerie des Odalisques, 1784.
One of the most erotic texts attributed to Mirabeau which he would have written during his 3 years of imprisonment in Vincennes, first published in 1783 under the following title Ma Conversion.
Cohen-deRicci, 709. Gay-Lemonnyer II, 929 ; Pia Enfer, 801 ; Galitzin 920.
« Immoral, licentious, provocative, and without god or master since his youth, such was Honoré Riqueti, Count of Mirabeau. His major erotic works, written in Vincennes where his father had him confined for forty-two months, from 1777 to 1781, because of his dissolute lifestyle reflect this character.… ».
Honoré-Gabriel de Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau, explores the twists and turns of a libertine’s spiritual life, oscillating between the rationality of the Enlightenment and the revelations of faith.
The work offers a poignant insight into the protagonist’s inner conflicts, a figure representative of the French aristocracy. The author captures the essence of an era in the midst of profound change.
Michel Camus, in his preface to the National Library’s edition of Enfer, admires “the modernity of the writing, its ease, its nonchalance.” It is time, in the 21st century, to pay this modernity the tribute it deserves, that is, to read it. Rather than the revolutionary orator (who is somewhat suspect), read Mirabeau the erotic, immoral, licentious, cynical, provocative writer...”.
Rare: RBH records only two copies: the Nordmann copy, and the copy offered in the Libertine Literature auction in 1971.
A very fine wide-margined copy, complete of the 7 famous erotic plates, preserved in its contemporary binding.
