L’année des dames nationales
A very fine and rare copy complete with all 31 engraved plates including the one dated October 29 depicting the execution of Charlotte Corday, preserved in its publisher's pink wrappers.
12 volumes 12mo with continuous pagination; illustrated with 31 copper-engraved plates out of text (12 as frontispieces, of which 11 are double compartment). In paperback, in contemporary soft pink covers, title and month vignettes on spine. Copy with all edges untrimmed.
180 x 110 mm.
Restif de La Bretonne, Nicolas Edme. The Year of the National Ladies; or, The Day-by-Day History of a Woman of France.
Geneva, Paris, Les Libraires, 1791-1794.
One of them depicts the execution of Charlotte Corday. Superb pamphlets from the period.
Precious first edition of one of Restif de La Bretonne’s most important works for the history of customs during the Revolution.
Rives Childs. pp. 322 to 327, Cioranescu 52632, Cohen. Illustrated Books of the 18th Century, pp. 884-885, Jacob. Critical Bibliography of the Works of Restif de la Bretonne, pp. 344 to 368.
Comprising 12 volumes, one for each month of the year, this novel of manners is made up of nearly 600 stories, a true crucible of literary inspiration, as noted by bibliographers: "all containing unusual facts and suitable to provide dramatists with subjects for plays of every kind."
The author himself offers this enthusiastic verdict on his work: "This infinitely varied, very extraordinary, very interesting work contains 610 stories, all of them extraordinary." The printing, which cost thirty thousand francs, proved to be a ruinous venture for Restif, who bitterly laments the hazards and exorbitant events of this revolutionary period in a final note.
The work, which features many famous women of the revolutionary era, brims with anecdotes and highly colorful details that Restif mainly obtained from the Marquis de la Grange, a former officer of the Musketeers, who attended the literary suppers of the Comtesse de Beauharnais every Friday.
"There, around three in the morning, the marquis would begin telling the secret anecdotes of the courts of Louis XV and Louis XVI."
In order to have access to authentic information about each of France’s provinces, Restif also had his publishers write to characteristic towns to glean "all the stories concerning the women and girls of that town…" He thus received 500 precise responses which he adapted into his stories.
The interest of this collection is enhanced by its important iconography for the history of customs and dress during the Revolution.
