Histoire de Jonathan Wild le Grand

Rare French first edition. Title pages in red and black.
Contemporary full green vellum binding. Smooth Jansenist spine. Red morocco title and volume labels. Upper joint of volume I split for most of its length, from tail to near the head; the lower joint also split at head. Headcap of volume II worn away, upper joint split, lower joint split at head. Russet stains on the last leaf of volume II.
Bookplate: Bibliothèque de M. André de Champcourt, Chevalier de l'ordre royal et militaire de Saint Louis.
Jonathan Wild was the most famous criminal of the 18th century, and the most popular. Daniel Defoe composed a biography of him in 1725. Fielding writes a satirical biography of a man whose entire ambition is to be great. He thus establishes a vast satire of supposed greatness in 18th-century society, a renown that is by no means distant from our own.