L'Epreuve délicate

First editions of eight plays bound in one volume.

Arioste gouverneur ou Le Triomphe du génie, written by Jean-François Roger in collaboration with Jean-Louis Brousse-Desfaucheret, is accompanied by a musical score.

The last three plays in the collection, signed under the pseudonym MM ***, were the result of Jean-François Roger’s collaboration with Auguste Creuzé de Lesser.

Half fawn basane binding, smooth spine richly gilt-decorated, fawn long-grain morocco spine label, speckled paper boards, marbled edges.

Boards rubbed, some scuffing to the leather, corners bumped, minor soiling to the leaves, a marginal tear with no loss of text on page 43 of the first play, some leaves slightly creased.

Four autograph inscriptions signed by the author to a lady.

After being imprisoned in 1792 for counter-revolutionary conduct, Jean-François Roger, a former law student, turned to writing for the stage. His comic plays, some written in collaboration with other celebrated authors of his day, such as Jean-Louis Brousse-Desfaucherets and Auguste Creuzé de Lesser, enjoyed considerable success. They were performed on numerous Parisian stages, including the Comédie-Française and the Théâtre de l’Opéra-Comique, as well as in theatres now vanished, such as the Théâtre Feydeau and the Théâtre du Vaudeville. The roles were interpreted by some of the most fashionable actors of the period, notably Mademoiselle Mars and Jean-Henri Gourgaud, known as Dugazon.

Enjoying the support of the powerful, he joined the Ministry of the Interior and subsequently held the position of inspector general of studies, before being removed from office for publishing a jest at Napoleon's expense.

In his dramatic writing, Jean-François Roger drew on modern Italian theatre, and especially on Carlo Goldoni (1707-1793), whose plots he adapted for his plays La Dupe de soi-même and L'Avocat. Under the Restoration, his royalist sympathies were rewarded, and he was elected to the Académie française on 28 August 1817. King Louis XVIII said to him at his reception: "Sir, your cause has been pleaded by a good lawyer" [avocat] — an allusion to his play L'Avocat.

The present compilation traces almost the entirety of Jean-François Roger's dramatic career, whose success secured him high office within the French administration and opened the doors of the Académie. With its fourfold inscription, this copy is an exceedingly rare testament to the practice of dedication at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.