THE DAYS OF CREATION, ‘COLLATED AND PERFECT’
GAMON, Christophe de.
La semaine, ou création du monde du sieur Christofle de Gamon, contre celle du Sieur du Bartas.
[Geneva,] Gédéon Petit, 1609.
12mo, pp. [24], 258, [1], [5 (blank)]; woodcut initials, head-, and tailpieces; light toning and variable foxing, printed marginalia occasionally shaved; nonetheless a good copy in contemporary vellum, yapp fore-edges, vestigial ties, title inked to spine (partly obscured by later morocco lettering-piece); a few marks and adhesive stains to covers, extremities slightly rubbed, corners bumped, lettering-piece chipped; some early annotations to front pastedown, verso of rear endpaper, and p. 95; contemporary notes early ownership inscription ‘Guymide Noux’ to title-page, manuscript shelfmark and inscription ‘Jan. 13 1723/4 Collat. & perfect. p[er] J. Wright’ to verso of front flyleaf; nineteenth-century armorial booklabel of from George Hay-Drummond to front pastedown with manuscript shelfmark.
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La semaine, ou création du monde du sieur Christofle de Gamon, contre celle du Sieur du Bartas.
Unauthorised second edition, scarcer than the first, of this poem on the creation of the world by Christophe de Gamon, this copy containing an early example of the use of the formula ‘collated and perfect’ by the librarian to the eighth Earl of Kinnoull.
La semaine was De Gamon’s (1574–1621) poetic response to the influential work of the same title by Guillaume de Salluste Du Bartas (1544–1590) published in Paris in 1578. The two Semaines belong to the genre of hexameral poetry, which describes in verses the six days of creation in the book of Genesis, and are divided in six parts, one for each day. De Gamon’s Semaine was a ‘revisionist interpretation’ of Du Bartas’ work, ‘updating its scientific knowledge though still essentially paying tribute [to it]’ (Auger). The book was first published in 1609 in Lyon by Claude Morillon, with privilège du roi; the present second edition appeared in the same year, printed by the Genevan publisher Gédéon Petit sans privilège. Some copies were issued by Petit with a nearly identical title-page but including ‘Geneve’ as the place of publication.
Provenance:
1. John Wright was the library keeper to George Henry Hay (1689–1758), eighth Earl of Kinnoull. Other books, formerly in the library of the Earls of Kinnoull and collated by Wright, are presently held at the university libraries of Glasgow and Princeton.
2. George Hay-Drummond (1827–1897), twelfth Earl of Kinnoull, with his armorial booklabel to front pastedown.
See Auger, ‘Du Bartas’ pattern for English scriptural poets’, in Pouey-Mounou and Smith (eds), Ronsard and Du Bartas in Early Modern Europe. Intersections, vol. 69 (2020), pp. 302-31.
Scarce outside continental Europe: we find no copies in the US, and OCLC and Library Hub together find two copies in the UK (BL, Edinburgh).
BM STC French, p. 216; USTC 6703046; Brunet II, 1476 (citing this edition as the first); Graesse III, p. 23; not in Cioranescu.
