Title: Maximes et Reflexions Morales.
Publisher: Didot le Jeune. Paris.
Publication Date: 1827
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very Good
Edition: 1st Edition
xxv, 96 printed pages in French (very slight foxing). At the right hand bottom corner of the initial leaf of every signature, is printed "*H.Didot*" in a type that is "certainly the smallest ever made" (Thurkow, MBN #60, March 1989, p. 6), less than half the 2 1/2-point type of the other text. Booksellers (Lefevre, Sautelet, Lugan) listed on page facing title page. Includes index ("Table des matieres"): pages [87]-96. Fore-edge untrimmed. Original primrose endpapers. 42 x 65mm. Original patterned pink cartonnage binding with blind borders, complete with similarly decorated original brown slipcase (both very slightly rubbed, slipcase joints a litle worn and missing the base section). This is the first publication that used the 66 year-old Henri Didot's exceptional 2 1/2-point polyamatype typeface. Spielmann described it as "one of the most distinguished miniature books of the early nineteenth century [and] the first appearance of this wonder of typography". "C'est un chef-d'oeuvre de gravure, et la perfection de la fonte de ce caractère, qui n'a que de deux points et demi, est due au moule polyamatype de l'invention de M. Henri Didot" (Ambroise Firmin-Didot, Essai sur la typographie col. 872). "One of the acknowledged miracles of microscopic printing, and in its quality unparalleled to this day... In spite of its exceedingly small size Didot's type is of great beauty and amazing clarity" (Bondy, p. 91). Nauroy, 63. Spielmann, 291-A. Welsh, 4283. WorldCat locates 12 copies (one in UK, one in Belgium and 10 in USA). Scarce in commerce. Seller Inventory # 5302