Recueil de diverses pièces comiques, gaillardes, et amoureuses dont les Titres se trouvent à la page suivante.

One of the first collected editions of these seven comic novellas, initially printed separately, by the Sieur de Préfontaine, regarded as a first-rate author by Charles Louandre: "without seeking to diminish in any way the merit of Boileau, without disputing his title as legislator of taste, one may say that Charles Sorel, Furetière, Préfontaine, [...] contributed alongside him and before him to cleansing the French Parnassus."

The first edition of one of the short stories contained in this volume, L'Assemblée des filoux et des filles de joie, is to this day lost; its earliest version is thus found in the 1671 editions.

Early nineteenth-century binding in full brown long-grain morocco, smooth spine with six gilt compartments decorated with urns, red morocco lettering-piece, triple gilt fillet border to boards, gilt-tooled roll to board edges with a diagonal line pattern, gilt edges, marbled pastedowns and endpapers with a shell pattern. Bookplate of "ED. PETIT" on the verso of the first free endpaper.

First free endpaper torn at inner margin over 5 cm, title page marginally rubbed, very slight marginal dampstaining from p. 297 to p. 318. A handsome and pleasing copy.

(our own translation) 

"I perhaps mock myself, for I may have been a Maître d'hôtel, I may have been a Cavalier, and I may also, if need be, make a passably good Apothecary."

(Author's Preface)

"François Oudin de Préfontaine, [...] was, it must be admitted, a rather dissolute character, frequenting taverns and houses of ill repute rather than the literary salons, often drunk, but always cheerful, sharp-witted, and entertaining; he was a man of considerable learning; he had command of foreign languages and literatures, he wrote in French like a true Gaul, and we have no doubt that Molière took great delight in reading the Recueil de diverses pièces comiques and the Nouveau recueil de divertissements comiques (Paris, de Luyne, 1670, in-12), the latter of which is dedicated to the young Marquis de Sévigné. It is most probably in these two works that Madame de Sévigné had learnt to appreciate bawdy humour, without the least injury to her virtue."

Bulletin du bibliophile et du bibliothécaire et de la Société des amis de la Bibliothèque nationale et des grandes bibliothèques de France, 1861

(our own translation)

The celebrated letter-writer was thus familiar with the works of the Sieur de Préfontaine, while being at the same time his pupil. He served for a time as Spanish tutor to several ladies of the court. A distinguished Hispanist, specialists such as Jacques Berchtold agree that he made a significant contribution to the French picaresque novel of the seventeenth century. The interest that the Sieur de Préfontaine harboured for Iberian culture is also apparent, according to the same source, in the comic, bawdy, and amorous short stories presented here; according to Berchtold, Le Poète extravagant bears several similarities to Cervantes's novella Rinconete y Cortadillo, while in Le Cavalier Grotesque, the reader follows the adventures of Belleforest, which closely echo those of the hidalgo Don Quixote.

Beyond their resemblances to Hispanic literature, these writings also shed light on the historical context of the period. Maurice Lever (biographer of the Marquis de Sade) wrote that "Préfontaine's language, with its looseness, its incorrectness, its rambling, its naivety, restores for us the flavour of popular speech." Fleeting glimpses into the lives of ladies of the night, a poet, noblewomen, an apothecary, and brigands are revealed through the Rabelaisian tales of this volume.

A rare collection bringing together seven novellas by César-François Oudin de Préfontaine, a man of letters whose writing was colloquial and argot-inflected in character, and who was also Madame de Sévigné's Spanish tutor.