MEMOIRS OF MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, DUKE OF SULLY
First edition in English, extra-illustrated copy, of this "instant classic" (Carlile), the autobiography of the minister and advisor to King Henry IV of France.
Fine.
Price: $4,800.00
MEMOIRS OF MAXIMILIAN DE BETHUNE, DUKE OF SULLY
"filled with political wisdom" — Charlotte Lennox
Charlotte Lennox was born into a well-to-do Scottish family that fell upon hard times. Well educated and distinguished early for her poetic precocity — but left to fend for herself financially, she turned to a career in writing. After publishing two novels (THE LIFE OF HARRIOT STUART, based heavily on her own experiences in the American colonies and voyage back to Britain; and THE FEMALE QUIXOTE, for which she is best known today), Lennox took up translation work in hopes of finding a more stable source of income. Among Lennox's most successful productions in her long publishing career, this translation of the Duke of Sully's MEMOIRS also led to an offer of a royal pension for Lennox in gratitude for literary services performed. (She turned it down in favor of her patron finding a government position for her husband instead.)
The Duke of Sully (1560-1641) was viewed by many in the Georgian period as an ideal Enlightenment-era statesman, and his MEMOIRS has been read as a literary political treatise. It influence was broad, including on the American Founding Fathers: it features in the 1783 list of books to be imported for the use of Congress, compiled under the leadership of James Madison.
This copy has been generously supplemented with nearly 200 engravings, primarily of portraits and landscapes of the figures and places described. As a 17th-century text, via an influential 18th-century translation, in a characteristically deluxe 19th-century extra-illustrated binding, it is a lovely hybrid artifact.
Read more: Carlile, Charlotte Lennox: An Independent Mind.
The Object
London: Printed for A. Millar, in the Strand; R. and J. Dodsley, in Pall-Mall; and W. Shropshire, in New-Bond-Street, 1756. Three quarto volumes, 10'' x 7.75'' each. Nineteenth-century full maroon straight-grain morocco by Bayntun, raised bands, elaborately gilt-stamped spines, large gilt cornerpieces and triple-gilt rules to boards. Gilt dentelles, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt. Extra illustrated with 193 additional plates: portraits, landscapes, dramatic scenes, inter alia. Half titles in first two volumes. [4], 540; [4], viii, 555, [1]; viii, 408 pages plus index. Only light rubbing to joints.
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