Le martyre de la fidelite [ensemble] Le duel de Tithamante

Very rare second editions of these two novels by Jean D'Intras de Bazas, published respectively in 1604 and 1603. Only the Bibliothèque Nationale de France holds copies of the first editions and second editions. Absent from French catalogues and from the British Library. A vignette on the title page of "Le martyre de la fidélité" unsigned by Léonard Gautier representing two lovers tied to the pillory on a lit pyre, with numerous figures around them. Nodier's Bulletin du bibliophile and Droz's chronological repertoire of literary text editions recognize only this edition for these texts.
Contemporary full brown sheep binding. Raised band spine decorated. Upper joint split at foot for 6cm and at head for 2cm. Headcaps worn. The novels are two tragic love stories, both preceded by a gallant and relatively passionate epistle to Madame de Lerm, Anne de Calonges.
Following the first novel, one finds a series of poems of which the last is a fundamentally erotic poem titled "énigme". Intras was a novelist from Languedoc whose florid and lyrical style is relatively complex. His path is relatively original and modern for this early 17th century period. His literature seems nourished by 16th-century Greco-Latin and Italian novelists, but with a distinctly more tragic and dramaturgical accent. His works, too hastily characterized as light, constitute an important turning point for the history of the baroque novel in France.