Pierre-Antoine de LA PLACE

First edition of these first three volumes published respectively in 1781, 1784 and 1785; 5 others were published until 1790. The complete set is rarely found together due to the extended publication period. 11 pages of musical score at the end of volume 3.
Contemporary full marbled brown sheep binding. Smooth spine decorated. Red morocco title label, green morocco volume labels. One lack to head of volume I. Various rubbing. 3 corners slightly bumped. The green of the volume labels differs for each volume. Handsome copy.
Rather disparate collection composed of letters, anecdotes, poetry. Nevertheless, it is possible to identify certain groups, thus the greater part of the first volume consists of correspondence with the Count of Bonneval relating to the affair that led the latter to take refuge in Turkey and fight under this new flag. We also find in the first volume correspondence between Cardinal de Fleury and Cardinal de Tencin. Volume II gathers pieces and letters around Mary Stuart, then letters from Voltaire. Volume IV after an account of the execution of Charles I, tells several anecdotes, French, English, a portrait of Louis XIV, and several poems.

Very rare collection of all the English Theater established and translated by La Place. All volumes bear the address of London, but we know that the volumes have appeared indifferently to the false address of London or that of Paris (same typographic material). All eight volumes appeared from 1745 to 1749, and the volumes constituting our copy are exceptionally homogeneous and follow each other, but none bears the date of 1745, date of the first edition for the first two volumes at least: Volume I ( 1746); Volume II (1746); Volume III (1746); Volume IV (1746). The following volumes seem to correspond to the dates of first publications: volume V (1747); volumes VI (1748); volumes VIII and IX (1749).
Pages of titles in red and black, a vignette of Bouchet engraved by Beaumont repeated on the eight volumes. A portrait of Shakespeare on the frontispiece of volume I engraved by Beaumont.

Binders in full blond vintage calf. Back with ornate nerves. Title and volume coins in tawny morocco.

This first translation of Shakespeare's theater in French and the Elizabethan tragedy in France is of great importance. It demonstrates the difficult emergence of Shakespeare's theater on French territory. The Place was not mistaken because it chose to adapt the plays of the playwright and to translate only certain extracts, except for Richard III which appears in its entirety, this last work being able to be received more by the French public according to the translator.
In the preface to English aesthetics, La Place reflects the English passion for the public, an audience of readers and not spectators. He insists that these pieces are made to be read and not represented; Shakespeare must therefore be ranked among the ancient authors who are read but do not play anymore. It must be emphasized, although these pieces are for the most part only selected extracts and whose translation is an adaptation, that this editorial company had a profound influence on the evolution of the theater in France. Between the classical French theater and the Elizabethan theater, she invented a medium-term, another theater, and thus could more easily penetrate the French theater and open a path for playwrights; thus the Hamlet of Ducis in 1769 is the result and the product of this path.
Most of Shakespeare's plays are only narrations and resumes, so of Romeo and Juliet , Troilus and Cressida, King Lear, Richard II ... at the end of Volume III. The same goes for the comedies at the end of Volume IV: Losses of love lost, as you please ... Details of the first four volumes: Othello, Henry VI, Richard III, Hamlet, Macbeth, Cymbeline, Julius Caesar , Cleopatra, Timon, The Wives of Windsor, The Maid (tragedy in one act by Fletcher). The first four volumes are held by Shakespeare, the next four are intended to give an idea of English theater by chronologically tracing time from the post-Shakespearian era to the first half of the eighteenth ^century ; thus the fifth volume contains Ben Jonson's play ( Catilina ) and then a play by Rowe, La Belle Penitente and the saved Venice of Otway. Volume VI contains Aurengzeb of Dryden; The mourning wife of Congrève; and Rowe's Tamerlane . Volume VII: The Damascus Siege of Hugues; Busiris de Young; Love for love of Congre. Volume VIII: The innocent adultery of Southerne; Caton of Addison; The funeral of Steele. The Place notes that all English theater proceeds from Shakespeare.