Oeuvres de La Bruyère
Paris: A. Belin, 1818. Reprint. Hardcover. Octavo. XV, [1], 416pp. Original full calf with gold lettering and decoration on spine. Marbled endpapers. Printer's device on title page. Ribbon marker. This work contains La Bruyère's masterpiece, the "Caractères", as well as La Bruyère's discourse of admission at the Academy, and his "Dialogues sur le Quiétisme." The plan of the book is thoroughly original, if that term may be accorded to a novel and skilful combination of existing elements. The treatise of Theophrastus may have furnished the first idea, but it gave little more. With the ethical generalizations and social Dutch painting of his original La Bruyère combined the peculiarities of the Montaigne Essais, of the Pensées and Maximes of which Pascal and La Rochefoucauld are the masters respectively, and lastly of that peculiar 17th century product, the "portrait" or elaborate literary picture of the personal and mental characteristics of an individual. The result was quite unlike anything that had been before seen, and it has not been exactly reproduced since, though the essay of Addison and Steele resembles it very closely, especially in the introduction of fancy portraits. La Bruyère's privileged position at Chantilly provided him with a unique vantage point from which he could witness the hypocrisy and corruption of the Louis XIV's court. As a Christian moralist, he aimed at reforming people's manners and ways of thinking through publishing records of his observations of aristocratic foibles and follies, which earned him many enemies at the court. Some age-wear on binding with lower spine missing, and rubbing along edges. Minor foxing throughout. Text in French. Binding in overall fair, interior in good+ to very good condition. g. Item #29286
Price: $65.00