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Four popular works, erotic as well as occult, bound contemporarily in one volume

[COURTIN, Antoine DE].
Traité de la jalousie, ou moyens d'entretenir la paix dans le marriage. Jouxte la copie imprimée.

With fine engraved frontispiece by Romeyn de Hooghe.

Paris (= Utrecht), Helie Josset (= Elzevier), 1682. 12mo. Contemporary calf. With fine engraved frontispiece by Romeyn de Hooghe. (12), 168, (8) pp.

With:
DIALOGUE DE L'ARETIN, ou Les vies, & faits de Lais, & Lamia Courtisanes de Rome sont deduites. Traduict d'Italien en François. (Netherlands, ca. 1680). 102, (2 blank) pp.

3. DIGBY, (K.). Discours fait en une Celebre Assemblée touchant la Guerison des Playes & la composition de la Poudre de Sympathie. Enrichie avec beaucoup des Remedes et rare Secrets Tirez de memoires du Chevalier Digby. Avec divers Secrets pour la Conservation de la Beauté des Dames. Utrecht, Rudolphe van Zyll, 1681. 378, (2 blank) pp.

4. MAINVILLE, (XANDRIN) DE. Du Bonheur et du Malheur du Marriage, Et des Considerations qu'il faut faire avant que de s'y engager, Ouvrage Moral & Curieux. La Haye, Adrian Moetjens, 1684. (8), 274, (6) pp.

Ad 1: Antoine de Courtin (1622-1685), French diplomat and literary author, became French ambassador at Sweden and private secretary to the Swedish Queen Christine and afterwards to King Karel-Gustav. The present work, on jealousy and keeping the peace within a marriage, became very popular, and according to Rahir the present edition was printed by the Elzeviers at Utrecht.
Ad 2: Imitation, in old French, of the third day, first part, of the "Ragionamenti".
Ad 3: Kenelm Digby, better known under the name Chevalier Digby (1603-1665), was a famous English naturalist and physician, who converted to Roman Catholicism and mainly lived in France. The present work is purely occult, but became very popular, discussing a "powder of sympathy" which could cure wounds and cuts at a distance, an idea which was used, though in reverse, by the successful Italian novelist, Umberto Eco, in his "L'isola del giorno prima" from 1994. In the present "Discours" Digby exposed also his ideas that under certain conditions people could live forever. And at the end a number of tips are given to preserve women's beauty.
Ad 4: On Sr. de Mainville, as the author calls himself, or on his book nothing further could be found. The book must have been rather popular, Cioranescu listing two Paris editions, a first from 1683, and a second edition from 1688.

Good copy.- (Spine damaged).

Ad 1: Rahir 3398; Gay-Lemonnyer III, 1236; not in NUC . Ad 2: Gay-Lemonnyer I, 896-897; not in NUC . Ad 3: Brunet II, 708; Ferguson, Bibl. Chem., I, p. 213, note Ferguson, Bibliogr. Notes, VI, 22; cf. Caillet 3124 (several Rouen and Paris ed., but not ours); Thorndike VII, p. 498 ff. and VIII, 295 ff. on the sympathetic powder no French ed. in Duveen; NUC lists 2 copies. Ad 4: cf. Cioranesco 44759-44760 (Paris-ed. only); NUC lists one copy.

Related Subjects: 17th Century Courtesy Books Erotica Literature Occult Occult Sciences Popular Books Women

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