MEMOIRS OF THE DUC DE SAINT-SIMON ON THE TIMES OF LOUIS XIV. AND THE REGENCY.

Boston : Hardy, Pratt & Co., 1902. The elegant "Tour de France" edition, limited to 1,250 sets - this set unnumbered. A celebrated eye-witness account of the French court from 1691 to 1723 - Versailles, Louis XIV, the Duc d'Orléans, Ninon de l'Enclos, Louis de France, Madame de Maintenon, and all the rest. The twenty volumes of the original French edition, edited by Pierre Adolph Chéruel (1809-1891), have here been translated and abridged to four volumes by Katharine Prescott Wormeley (1830-1908). Four volumes. Post 8vo (205 x 140mm). x,(346); x,330; x,(346); xiv,396pp. Forty-two photogravure portraits, some hand-coloured. Genealogical table. Bound in an elegant contemporary half blue morocco, banded and gilt; top edges gilt; a little worn and sunned; some spotting of edges; lower boards and endleaves slightly affected by damp, with some softening and marking, but a good, serviceable and not unattractive set. Pictorial bookplates and ownership inscriptions of Roy McWilliams in each volume.