Nicolas-Edme RÉTIF DE LA BRETONNE

Edition illustrated with 30 etchings and original initials by Maurice de Becque, one of 10 numbered copies on Imperial Japan paper containing a duplicate suite signed by Maurice de Becque.
Two slight tears at head and foot of spine, otherwise handsome copy.

Second edition from the same publisher, the first having been published the year before in 1769. We know that the publisher was actually Delalain and that it was printed in Paris, but the publisher used a false address to evade censorship.
Contemporary brown calf binding. Smooth spine decorated with acorn tools. Red morocco title label. Upper joint narrowly split at head. Handsome copy.
Le pornographe is a manifesto for the regulation of prostitution. The author is the inventor of the neologism that combines two Greek roots and literally means: one who writes about prostitutes. This project for regulating prostitutes has the originality of having a literary form, Restif using...

First edition published from the autograph manuscript and printed in a small number of copies on laid paper.
Publisher's binding in full flexible red cardboard, smooth spine decorated with blind fillets, blind frames on boards, a significant stain on the front board and a few other small stains slightly affecting both boards without damage to the interior condition.

Le Paysan perverti. - La Paysane pervertie [La Paysanne pervertie]. - Les Figures du Paysan perverti
[The Perverted Peasant and Peasant Woman]

Chez Esprit & Chez la Veuve Duchesne, La Haie [Paris] 1776 [i.e. 1782] and 1784, 12° (9,5x16,5cm), 9 volumes bound.
Famous first illustrated edition of Le Paysan perverti. First edition of its sequel, La Paysane pervertie and of the explanatory volume of the figures. According to Cohen "the costs of the illustration were borne by a rich man, a friend of Restif, probably Grimod de la Reynière."
Red morocco binding signed Belz Niedrée, circa 1860-1880, spine elaborately decorated in gilt, gilt...

Original typescript of 50 leaves, comprising Blanchot’s collected writings on Restif de la Bretonne, which appeared successively in Critique n°22 in March 1948, under the title “Un livre vivant [A Living Book] ”, and Les Cahiers de la Pléiade n°4 in June 1948, under the title “Les plaisirs de la vertu [The Pleasures of Virtue] ”, and finally as a preface to Restif de la Bretonne’s “Sara”, published by Stock in 1949. This important collection is enriched with four manuscript leaves written recto and verso of the first outline, notes, and final typescript of “Plaisirs de la vertu”, annotated by the publisher. The first leaf has a...