Items
Details
Title
Celinte. Novvelle premiere.
Created/published
A Paris : Chez Avgvstin Covrbé, au Palais, en la galerie des merciers, à la Palme, M. DC. LXI.
Description
3 preliminary leaves, 394 (i.e. 412) pages ; 18 cm
Associated name
Scudéry, Madeleine de, 1607-1701, author.
Note
This is a PRELIMINARY RECORD. It may contain incorrect information. The "FAST ACC" number is a temporary call number. Please email catalog@folger.edu for assistance.
Place of creation/publication
France.
Item Details
Call number
FAST ACC 271406 (quarto)
Folger-specific note
Purchase made possible by The K. Frank and Joycelyn C. Austen Acquisitions Endowment. From dealer's description: "FIRST EDITION. 8vo, (170 x 105 mm), engraved frontispiece by François Chauveau and pp. [iv], 394 [ie 412], engraved printer’s device on title-page, numerous errors in pagination, some light damp-staining on the title-page and preliminary leaves, marginal damp-stain to lower corner of last few gatherings, touching the text, iin a contemporary armorial binding, in speckled calf, triple gilt fillet to covers, spine gilt in compartments with red morocco label lettered in gilt, with coat of arms gilt in the centre of front and back covers, marbled endpapers, speckled edges, with the later illustrated bookplate of Dr. François Yung. The scarce first edition of this sentimental adventure novel by Madeleine de Scudéry, a much shorter novel than her previous best-sellers, reflecting the changing trends in popular literature. Not only was this novel published anonymously, rather than under her brother’s name (as she chose to publish Artamine ou le grand Cyrus, which appeared in ten volumes between 1649 and 1653) but the work is preceded by a note from the bookseller to the reader, drawing attention to the anonymity of the novel in a rather arch manner: ‘Ne t’informe point trop curieusement, Lecteur, de l’Autheur de cette nouvelle. Il m’est défendu de t’en dire le nom, mais tu le devineras aisément pour peu que tu sois du monde, ou que tu aye connoissance des fameux Ouvrages de cette nature’ (Le Libraire au Lecteur, p. iii). The novel was an immediate success and the hidden authorship only allowed for a brief moment of anonymity. In 1664, Charles Sorel wrote of Célinte as ‘a serious and most beautiful novel, believed to be from the pen of one of the most excellent women ever to have written, and that is Mademoiselle de Scudery’ (Sorel, Bibliothèque françoise, 1667). Provenance: Jean-Joseph de Bouguignon-Bussière, marquis de la Mure, born at Marseille in 1721, made a Knight of the Order of Saint-Louis in 1751, he was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Richelieu at the Seige of Mahon. In 1758 he married Charlotte-Philippine de Chastres de Cangé and soon afterwards abandoned his military career to concentrate on building his library and art collections." Ordered from Amanda Hall Rare Books, D9304, 2019-05-14, email quote.
Folger accession
271406