MADEMOISELLE DE MAUPIN (17th Century Swordswoman, Opera Singer, and Cross-Dresser))

London, England: Vizetelly & Co, 1889. Second English Edition. Hardcover. Good Only. 8vo. (Measuring 8" x 5 1/2" (21 cm. x 13 cm.). Olive green cloth, triple ruled in blind around edges, with gilt lettering to spine. Violet, orange, brown, blue, red drop-caps and head/tailpieces. Lower spine cloth patched. Dark green pastedowns, and rear endpaper. Front free endpaper missing. Two pages of advertisements at beginning. Seventeen etchings by Chamollion, from designs by Toudouze. Lacks one plate from p. 356. Scarce copy -- probably the second English edition, "Julie d'Aubigny (1670/1673-1707), better known as Mademoiselle Maupin or La Maupin, was a 17th-century swordswoman and opera singer. Her tumultuous career and flamboyant life were the subject of gossip and colourful stories in her own time, and inspired numerous portrayals afterwards. Théophile Gautier loosely based the title character, Madeleine de Maupin, of his novel Mademoiselle de Maupin (1835) on her." (Wikipedia)

The real-life "La Maupin" frequently dressed in men's clothing (although never disguising her gender), taking lovers of both sexes, frequently skirting the law for doing things like beating up her landlord, or, in order to run away with her lover, a cloistered convent-bound nun, stole the body of a dead nun, placed her in her beloved's bed and set the room afire before running away with her lover.