Marc-Michel Rey

First French illustrated edition with 13 attractive unsigned figures. Title pages in red and black. Sir Charles Morell is the pseudonym of James Ridley. The first English edition dates from 1764, here translated by Robinet.
Contemporary full brown marbled and glazed calf bindings. Spines with raised bands, decorated. Red morocco title and volume labels. Headcap of volume I with loss. Restorations at head of volumes II and III, likewise at tail of volume I. Joint of volume II split at tail. A filled loss along the upper joint of volume II. Upper joint of volume III split at tail. Fresh copy overall with some yellowed leaves. The plates of volume III have been bound in volume II and vice...

First collected edition but not authorized by the author. It contains 25 plates including 3 frontispieces and several with geometry diagrams. Handsome edition, elegantly composed and printed, but it contains four texts that are not by the author: Le Code de la Nature by Morelly, Les Principes de Philosophie Morale by Étienne Beaumont, La Justification de Plusieurs Articles de l'Encyclopédie by Abbé Monlinot, and Lettre au P. Berthier sur le Matérialisme by Abbé Coyer. Originally, Marc-Michel Rey had an editorial project with Diderot for his works, but this project was aborted. Multiple paginations, each text having its own pagination and table of contents.
Contemporary full marbled and...

First edition.
Contemporary full glazed brown calf binding. Spine with raised bands decorated with 5 attractive fleurons with stars at the corners. Beige morocco title label. Margins of the title page browned, as well as the second leaf. Upper margin of the blank leaf before the title torn and missing. Handsome copy, elegantly bound.
A much more complete biography than that published in Latin by Charles Pascal in 1584. Before becoming the author of the Quatrains, Pibrac was one of the most skillful negotiators of his time. Having returned to France after serving as ambassador to the Council of Trent and then to Poland, he was appointed Chancellor to the Queen of Navarre. It was...

New edition, after the first published in 1758.
Full glazed blonde sheep binding. Spine with raised bands decorated with 4 fleurons in compartments; roulette at foot. Red morocco title label. Upper joint cracked. Corners slightly bumped. Headcap amateurishly restored.
This play, Diderot's second published work, after Le Fils naturel in 1757 (for which he was accused of plagiarizing Goldoni) and which would not be performed until 1761, marks a remarkable turning point in the history of theater. Advocating a natural and realistic plot, based on contemporary characters, Diderot, developing his ideas in the essay that follows the play, invents bourgeois drama and definitively disrupts...

Second edition, after the original published in 1764.
Contemporary full calf binding. Spine with raised bands decorated with fleurons in compartments. Red morocco title label, and beige morocco volume label. Head of volume I worn. A lack to the second compartment of the second volume. Joints of volume II split at foot. Some surface abrasions to the boards.
Bonnet (1720-1793) is considered one of the fathers of modern biology (he was the first to use the term Evolution in biology), both for his experimental research and his philosophy which had a profound influence on naturalists. It was when he was struck with blindness that he turned to theory. This work takes up the first eight...

Rare pirated edition by Jean-Baptiste Reguillat in Lyon. The second text is the response addressed by Rousseau to the archbishop of Paris for his attack on Emile; this edition is a counterfeit of the original, probably Parisian, and would have been orchestrated by Rousseau himself.
Contemporary full speckled sheep binding. Smooth spine decorated with 5 fleurons. Beige morocco title label. A fragment missing at head, and at joints at head. Upper joint cracked at tail. Relatively fresh overall.
"The Réguilliat edition was one of the important milestones in the editorial history of this great text" writes Dominique Varry, book historian, in Histoire et civilisation du livre, "Un...

Counterfeit edition published only one year after the octavo and duodecimo first editions. This copy in the same format as the octavo first edition that was corrected by Rousseau.

Contemporary full calf, smooth spine decorated with five gilt fleuron tools, red morocco lettering-piece, single fillet ruled in blind to boards, gilt fillet to board edges, red edges, marbled endpapers and pastedowns.

Head of spine missing, usual wear...