Oeuvres diverses ... avec le traité du sublime, ou du merveilleux dans le discours. Traduit du grec de Longin. Nouvelle édition, reveuë et augmentée.

Paris, Denys Thierry, 1701. Title printed in red and black. With engr. frontispiece by P. Landry, 2 full-page engravings by Chauveau dated 1674, engr. head-piece, engr. initial and several woodcut head- and tail-pieces. 8 unn. leaves, 446 pp., (recte 440 pp., pagination 233 to 240 and Kk4 omitted); pp. 1-116, 4 leaves, pp. 119-200. 4to. Contemp. full calf over five raised bands, spine and outer edges gilt. Paris, Denys Thierry, 1701. Published during his lifetime, this is the first edition to bear the author's name. Boileau-Despréaux (1636-1711) himself declared it his favorite edition, and Quérard judges it as "édition la plus précieuse pour les gens de lettres". According to the bibliographers, the 12mo edition of the same year was printed a few months later. Here, the first part contains "Satires", "Epistres", "L'art poëtique en vers", "Le Lutrin, poëme heroïcomique", "Odes, epigrammes, et autres poësies", "Reflexions critiques sur quelques passages du Theteur Longin", and "Lettre a Monsieur Perrault". Part II consists of the "Traité du sublime ou du merveilleux dans le discours", a translation from the Greek, attributed to the 3rd-century neo-platonist Cassius Longinus. All of Boileau-Despréaux' writings are examples of the traditional classical aesthetics of art imitating nature. Since 1683 a member of the Académie Française, Boileau-Despréaux was a friend of Racine and Molière, highly esteemed by the French public. In the quarrel between the "Anciens" and the "Modernes", he decidedly opted for the traditional side. - Minor browning throughout, stamp on title. - Quérard, La France littéraire, I, 375 ("on ne la trouve plus que par hasard"); Tchémerzine II, 283; Brunet I, 1057-58. Not in Cohen/de Ricci (mention a 4to edition by Claude Barbin), Lewine, and Sander. LITERATURE: FRENCH ; ILLUSTRATED BOOKS (BEFORE 1900) ;