Clarisse Harlowe

First octavo edition in Letourneur's new translation, illustrated with 21 fine figures by Chodowiecki and a frontispiece portrait by Pujos on strong paper. The figures printed before letters. The English original was published in 1748.
Contemporary full porphyry sheep bindings. Smooth spines very richly decorated with ornamental compartments, Greek fillets at head and tail, fillets between compartments. Red morocco title label, volume label with urn and garland in black morocco. Leather of upper joint of volume I narrowly split at head; slight lack at tail. Small leather lack at head of volume II, revealing the board; lacks to joint at tail; lack to lower joint at head. Volume III: lower joint split at tail. Volume IV: lower joint split at tail. Volume V: upper joint narrowly split. Volume VI: Lower and upper joints with lacks at tail and narrow splits along the lower joint. Volume VII: Top of headcap rubbed and slightly worn. Volume IX: Upper joint split at head and top of headcap rubbed. Volume X: Lower joint open at head, same at tail, upper joint split at head. Some corners slightly bumped. No half-titles were bound in this copy. Fresh copy overall, full-margined, some engravings are shorter in right margin.
Despite the mentioned defects, superb set in rich decorative binding.
Clarissa Harlowe is the second major novel published by the author after the immense success of Pamela; it is again a sentimental novel whose virtuous heroine finds herself forced by her family to marry a noble, ugly and obese man, against her will. She will flee with one Lovelace, the very type of elegant, villainous and deceitful libertine, who desires to constrain her body and soul, leading her into social and moral decline, but this will be without counting on Clarissa's virtuous qualities. If the novel, from a modern viewpoint, suffers from sentimentalism and length, it nonetheless remains true that the construction of the plot, the dramatic twists and the psychology would durably mark European literature. Diderot would proclaim it in his Eloge de Richardson, and numerous authors would claim it as influence or undergo its influence: Rousseau, Jane Austen, Choderlos de Laclos...