Auteurs déguisez sous des noms étrangers, empruntez, supposez, feints à plaisir, chiffrez, renversez, retournez, ou changez d'une langue en une autre

First edition of the first work on anonymous and pseudonymous authors published in France (cf. Barbier, I, 320; Besterman, Bibliography of Bibliographies, 398.)

Contemporary full marbled calf binding, spine with five raised bands ruled in gilt and decorated with richly gilt compartments, red morocco lettering-piece, gilt rolls to the spine ends, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, gilt fillets to the edges, yellow speckled edges, engraved armorial bookplate pasted to the pastedown.

The work was intended to serve as a preliminary study for a Recueil français des auteurs déguisés, a project abandoned following the author's death before later being resumed by Barbier.

Following Placcius and his "De scriptis & scriptoribus anonymis atque pseudonymis syntagma" published in 1674, this constitutes the second work devoted to the subject.

Professor at the Collège de Beauvais, later librarian to President Lamoignon and tutor to his son, Adrien Baillet (1649-1695) was among the earliest scholars of his age to produce works of systematic bibliography.

In this celebrated work he denounces the deceit and practices of literary forgers.

An attractive copy, with an unidentified armorial bookplate.