A Naughty Novice
[EROTICA.]
La belle sans chemise. ‘A Londres’, 1797.
18mo in 6s, pp. [6], 156, with engraved frontispiece; with half-title; half-title browned, slight staining to inner margins of frontispiece and title, small paperflaw to last leaf not affecting text, occasional light creasing to corners; overall a very good copy in contemporary red morocco, spine gilt in compartments with gilt green morocco lettering-piece, edges gilt, marbled endpapers; extremities slightly rubbed.
Very rare edition, with a false London imprint and an engraved frontispiece, of an erotic novel encompassing threesomes, dildos, cross-dressing, theft, extortion, betrayal, and revenge.
The text begins with the beautiful young Angélique being packed off to an Ursuline cloister in Lyons by her jealous mother. Here she is seduced during an illness by a visiting Jesuit called Stanislas, who subsequently helps her to escape from the convent. Determined to make the most of her freedom, Angélique falls in with a dashing cavalier and they rob the Jesuit and enjoy a threesome with a maid. After being robbed herself by a dastardly Italian lover, Angélique settles down in a respectable household where she teaches the daughter, Judith, how to use a dildo (‘godemiché’) – which a naive maid discovers in their bed and mistakes for an animal – and to trim her pubic hair. Further adventures follow in Strasbourg where Angélique dresses as a man. After extorting money from various lovers in Holland, she bumps into the Jesuit priest Stanislas in The Hague, who exacts his revenge – he gets her drunk, makes love to her in the sea, and then runs off with her clothes, leaving her as ‘la belle sans chemise’ of the title. This final scene is the subject of the frontispiece here, by Edme Bovinet (1767–1832) after Chaillou.
The novel first appeared in 1683, with a false Cologne imprint, under the title Eve ressucitée ou la belle sans chemise: avantures plaisantes. It clearly met with some success: 1684 saw the publication of both an English translation, Eve revived, or the fair one stark-naked: a novell (London, William Downing), and a German rendering, Die auferstandene Eva oder die Schöne ohne Hembd. All these editions are rare.
We find only two copies worldwide (BL, Darmstadt).
ESTC T120165.