Mémoires du Cardinal de Retz

Edition with some parts in first edition, definitive, rare; "more complete than the previous ones and the best that was given in the 18th century"... Tchemerzine V, 396. An engraved portrait by Thomassin at the frontispiece. This would be the only edition of the Memoirs cited by de Bure in his bibliography. Title pages in red and black.
Contemporary full blonde calf binding, glazed. Spine with raised bands decorated with 4 fleurons. Title labels absent, the letters remaining visible; black calf volume labels, rubbed. Headcaps of volumes I and II worn, volumes III and IV frayed; tailcap of volume I partially missing. Joints of volume I cracked, cracked at head and foot for volume II and for volumes III and IV. One gathering of the table detached. Corners bumped.
Paul de Gondi wrote his memoirs at the request of his friends, during his exile, around the age of sixty (circa 1675 - 1677), and composed the autobiography of a politician in an era of civil war, the Fronde. Not content with being a historical testimony of the first order, the work stands among the literary monuments of the 18th century and of memoirs and other autobiographies, through its lively, precise style, that of a man of action and intrigue with remarkable intelligence and political ambition always alert (always ready to ally with those who betrayed him the day before). His memoirs would constitute a revenge and his last resort of ambition. At the end of volume IV, a long mazarinade dedicated to the Prince de Conti: Le courrier burlesque de la guerre de Paris.
19th-century armorial bookplate of William Wickhman.