Lettres du Marquis de Roselle

First edition.
Contemporary marbled full calf binding. Decorated smooth spine. Marbled brown calf title label. Head frayed with lacks. Rubbing. Corners bumped and worn. Some signatures protruding. Worming to upper margins in the middle of the book on several occasions. Black marks pp. 96 and 97 in the same place as the worming. Tear p. 180.
This forgotten novel by Madame de Beaumont was a great success and was immediately translated in England where it was compared to Richardson's epistolary novels. A rather weak sequel was made by Desfontaine (Lettres de Sophie...). "The marquis de Roselle begins his worldly life with an unbridled passion for an Opera actress, who employs a resistance based on a pretended return to virtue to seduce him." Recueil d'analyses raisonnées des productions remarquables des plus célèbres romanciers français et étrangers, Eugène G*****, 1839.