Lettres d’Adélaïde de Dammartin, comtesse de Sancerre, au comte de Nancé, son ami par Madame Riccoboni. Première [& Seconde] Partie.

Paris: Chez Humblot (de l'imprimerie de Quillau). Very Good+. 1767. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. 2 vols in 1 pages; Contemporary full calf, mottled decorative staining, flat spine separated into panels by gilt rules with floral tools in gilt in the center of each panel but the second, which has a red morocco titling label lettered in gilt, swirl marbled endpapers, edges of the text block marbled to match. A lovely binding of the time of publication, showing just a touch of the lightest rubbing along the hinges and corners; a clean and pleasing copy in choice condition. A significant and sucessful novel in epistolary form by one of the masters of the genre, Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni (1714 - 1792). The author was born in 1713 as Marie-Jeanne Heurles de Laboras and was to endure a dramatically adverse situation before she was a year old, when her father was convicted of bigamy. The usual form of the author's name is a result of her 1734 marriage to an actor and playright, Antoine-François Riccoboni, (son of Luigi Riccoboni, an even more celebrated actor who was also Directeur de la Comédie Italienne). This marriage was less than ideally successful, but Madame Riccoboni did have something of a career on the stage as an actress. Diderot made a famous (and unkind) remark about her abilities as an actress, which may have had something to do with her withdrawal from the stage in 1760 when she turned to writing. Her husband may have given her much about which to complain and resent, but this marriage did give her access to some of the major intellectual salons of the time, including those of baron d'Holbach and Helvetius, and she formed friendships with English philosophers and writers, including Adam Smith, David Hume, and David Garrick (to whom this book is dedicated). She set up residence in the rue Poissonnière with her friend Thérèse Biancolelli, and her books were a great success. Through them, she helped bring the epistolatory novel into its mid-eighteenth century, and her achievement can be traced by the following series of titles: 'Lettres de mistriss Fanni Butlerd' (1757), 'L'Histoire du marquis de Cressy' (1758), 'Lettres de Milady Juliette Catesby (1759) - (this title was notably admired by Voltaire and translated into English by Frances Brooke in 1760). Diderot, not fond of her as an actress, became a great admirer of Madame Riccoboni as a writer -- "Cette femme écrit comme un ange, c'est un naturel, une pureté, une sensibilité, une élégance, qu'on ne saurait trop admirer." Our novel follows 'L'Histoire d'Ernestine' (1765), and stands as the first of a series of three particularly adept novels told through an invented exhange of letters: 'Adelaide de Dammartin (comtesse de Sancerre)' (2 vol., 1766); 'Elizabeth Sophie de Valliere' (2 vol., 1772); and 'Milord Rivers.' (2 vol., 1776). She also translated five plays from the English stage, including plays written by George Colman and her friend David Garrick. Saint-Beuve gave his readers a juicy bit of gossip, claiming that Marie Antoinette had Madame Riccoboni's novels bound up to resemble her book of hours, so that she might read for pleasure when it was necessary to show a pious nature in public. Alas, Madame Riccoboni did not outlive her most famous fan, but did outlive her fame and her money, as the Revolution had put an end to the royal pension she had been receiving. She died on the 7th of December 1792 in the arms of her friend Thérèse, leaving just a few meagre possessions -- a faint remainder of their salon from thirty years past. This excellent copy has no bookplates, signatures, or marks of any sort. There is a list of her previous books on the verso of the first half title (both half titles are retained in this copy) -- and the printer's name and address are recorded at the foot of the final leaf of the Seconde partie (p. 192). There was a second edition in 1771, and additional editions called for in 1772 and 1790. See OCLC Number: 457845468 (for the Bibliotheque Nationale copy; there are other OCLC numbers for this work -- see 79417964, 833296756, 14232821, and 771715528, this last for the British Library copy). Spoiler alert as to the plot: adultery is involved. .