Les Avantures plaisantes de Gusman d'Alfarache, Tirées de l'Histoire de sa vie, & revues sur l'ancienne Traduction de l'Original Espagnol.‎

New edition of the translation by Alain-René Le Sage, revised by Pons-Auguste Alletz, some forty years after its initial publication. Two frontispieces decorate each volume. As we learn from the Avertissement, this classic, which flowed from the pen of the author nicknamed the "Divine Spaniard" by his compatriots, was then, in the 1770s, unknown to a large part of the French youth.

Contemporary binding in full brown tree calf, smooth gilt spine with four compartments separated by traditional and dotted fillets, red morocco lettering-piece and numbering-piece, blind fillet framing the boards, gilt fillet on board edges, red edges, shell-marbled paper pastedowns and endpapers.

Discreet old restorations, corners worn, scattered foxing. On the first volume, the upper board is slightly sprung and the spine is lightly split at the foot; on the second volume, the upper joint is slightly starting and there are a few minor losses to the red morocco of the spine. Internally in good condition. In the first volume, small holes to pp. 27 and 169, not affecting the text, and a small marginal tear to p. 227. In the second volume, a discrete red stain to the frontispiece and title-page, a small hole slightly affecting the text on p. 315, a marginal tear very slightly touching the text on p. 361, and another marginal tear, also to the margin, not affecting the text on p. 367.

“One may say, without undue risk, that Gusman d’Alfarache had fallen into obscurity for nearly thirty years. With all editions long out of print, it had become very scarce, and was known only to those of an older generation, who had read it in their youth […]”

Avertissement, p. iii. 

(our own translation)