Les oeuvres. Les nouvelles oeuvres

Second edition of the Oeuvres (and first by Courbe who had just acquired the privilege) by Voiture and first edition of the Nouvelles oeuvres. Two title vignettes by Picart. A fine portrait by Champaigne.
Binding in full eighteenth-century mottled calf. Spine with raised bands handsomely decorated with fleurons and stars, fillet at tail. Red morocco title-label. Triple gilt fillet frame on boards. Decorative gilt board-edges. Marbled edges. Fine restorations to corners and headcaps. Rubbing. First leaves yellowed with small marginal dampstains. Extensive yellowing on the preliminary leaves of the Nouvelles oeuvres.
Voiture (1597-1648) was throughout his life a gallant and courtier, brilliant in the salons and playing at games. His epistolary talent earned him the distinction of making prose fashionable in France for a long time, and his poetry excels in the mannered and precious tone, even though he knows how to be trivial in turn when necessary. He is an essential figure of the literary scene of the early seventeenth century, a true Molière character.
Voiture is above all a style, not only in his letters (Lettres amoureuses) and his poetry but also in his prose, see for example the delightful Métamorphoses. His works were in the image of the man, gallant, teaching fine language and beautiful manners to the regulars of the hôtel de Rambouillet. His fame was very great during his century and he remains an emblem of the seventeenth century.