Oeuvres

Factitious collection of several editions by the same publisher at different dates comprising the author's works. The first 4 volumes dated 1762 bring together the tales and miscellaneous works. The 2 volumes numbered 5 and 6 are the Memoirs of the Count of Grammont, dated 1760 and with the same device as on the title pages of the first 4 volumes. The seventh volume contains miscellaneous works dated 1776, the only volume bearing an address and place (Le Jay in Paris).
Contemporary bindings in full glazed blonde marbled calf. Smooth spines decorated with acorn tools. Red morocco title labels, and black morocco volume labels (that of volume II in green morocco may have changed color). Tail headcap torn on volume I. Wormholes at tail of volume II; similarly, worming at tail of volume III and on the first compartment, with losses. A wormhole at tail of volume IV. 3 corners bumped on volume I. Rubbing. Generally fresh, leaves sometimes slightly yellowed.
Count Hamilton left one of the most appreciated novels of the 18th century, the Memoirs of Count Grammont, which were later praised and rehabilitated by Etiemble. He also left a collection of marvelous and oriental tales in the taste of his time, which only circulated in manuscripts, then were published in 1730. Here is what Laharpe wrote about the Memoirs: "Of all frivolous books, it is the most agreeable and ingenious; it is the work of a light and refined spirit, accustomed in the corruption of courts to know no other vice than the ridiculous, to cover the worst morals with a veneer of elegance, to relate everything to pleasure and gaiety. There is something of Voiture's tone, but infinitely perfected. The art of recounting small things, in a way to make them worth much, is in its perfection."