Title: Oeuvres du Chevalier de Boufflers
Publisher: Geneve
Publication Date: 1782
Binding: Hardcover
Book Condition: Very Good
Edition: 1st
172 printed pages. 72 x 122mm. Fine copper engraved frontispiece. Beautiful and different variety of copper engraved head and tail pieces. Marbled endpapers. All edges gilt. Original silk bookmark still present. Bound in full calf, mottled boards with triple gilt lines (edges of boards with twin gilt lines), spine decorated with acorn and flower gilt tooling and lettering within six decorated compartments with dots and tiny flourishes. A very charming and accomplished contemporary continental leather binding in remarkably good condition, especially since the acid solution used in marbling to produce the mottled effect very often weakens the hinges until the boards frequently become detached. First Swiss edition, published in the same year as the London edition. Stanislas Jean de Boufflers, Marquis of Remiencourt, more often called the Chevalier de Boufflers (1738-1815) was a French poet. Rivarol called him a "Libertine abbot, military philosopher, chansonnier diplomat, patriotic emigrant, courtier republican". Voltaire showed him great respect as a writer who echoed much of his own rebellious and cynical philosophy. Boufflers is one of Benedetta Cravieri's seven "Last Libertines", a 2020 scholarly book about how French noblemen enjoyed life before the guillotine fell. Bookseller Inventory # 4192