Les nouvelles françaises, ou les divertissements de la princesse Aurelie

New edition after the original of 1657 (Sommaville). Edition illustrated with a frontispiece and 6 unsigned figures (one for each novella as frontispiece).
In original wrappers, lacking binding. A light dampstain at the end of volume I, in the middle. Segrais (1624-1701) was secretary to Mademoiselle de Montpensier (from whom Madame de Lafayette would draw a narrative), and director of the French Academy. The collection comprises 6 historical novellas, a genre inaugurated a few years earlier by Madame de Lafayette's La princesse de Clèves. Lafayette's novels appeared under Segrais's pseudonym... In the preface, Segrais speaks of a princess close to Louis XIV and retired to a castle with her attendants, each telling a story, the whole forming the entertainments of Princess Aurélie. These novellas constitute an important ensemble for 17th-century literature and a decisive step, close to Madame de Lafayette's literature, toward the modern narrative.