De la Connoissance des bons livres, ou examen de plusieurs autheurs

First edition of an important work by Charles Sorel, historiographer of France and novelist, in which he surveys with severity and wit the literary production of his time, which he considered overly given to fiction.

 Complete with its eagle headpieces.

Contemporary full mottled brown calf, spine with five raised bands decorated with gilt compartments and gilt title, gilt roll on the board edges, red mottled edges. 

Upper headcap missing, lower headcap slightly split, scuffs, minor cracking and marginal staining to the boards, corners and board edges rubbed. 

Scattered foxing and browning. 

An ink gift inscription on the first and second pastedowns "To Mr Rahault [de Villers] [...] auditor at the Chamber of Accounts in Paris."

(our own translation)

"Shall we not also observe that, to show that these marvellous authors always have but one and the same thing to tell us, the characters in their books are all young, and all in love, and all fair, and all fair-haired — were they even from Mauritania."

p. 115

"As for works of excellence, it is certain that the passage of Time has also lent them greater reputation than they would have enjoyed in an Age where truth does not always prevail, and where artifice never fails to bring forward many Books that are but mediocre. Can we truly believe that were the Works of Montaigne and Charron to be printed today for the first time, they would receive the same applause they once enjoyed, or that they would ever have been reprinted so many times as they already have been?"

p. 23

"There are hapless princesses who are lost and recovered four or five times in succession, and carried off by various parties: so much so that this constitutes the most notable division of their lengthy histories; just as, when a good woman was once asked how far she had got in her reading of one such book, she replied with perfect candour that she was on her fourth abduction."

p. 114

(our own translation)