BOUND FOR THE EDITOR

Carminum libellus. Parisiis, apud Claudium Cramoisy... M. DC. LXII.

Paris, 1662.

12mo., ruled in red, title printed in red and black; bound in French contemporary red morocco, panelled sides, fleurons at corners, arms in centre of Louis-Henri de Loménie de Brienne (1636-1698; Olivier 1072, 2) with the crest of the fairy Melusine in a tub, spine in compartments with his monogram (ibid. 1072, 4), edges gilt.

£2250

Approximately:
US $2802€2626

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First edition, the author’s only book, edited after his death by Loménie de Brienne, this copy ruled in red and bound for the editor with his arms.

The poems are addressed to the great names of seventeenth-century France - Louis XII and Louis XIV, Richelieu, Mazarin, Foucquet, the duc de Gramont, and Queen Christina. And they earned the writer an inflated reputation: “Balzac le comparait à Horace; Costar déclarait voir en lui le premier homme pour les vers lyriques; Nicolas Bourbon s’écria en le lisant: Ubi tamdiu latuisti?” (Biog. Univ.).

Loménie de Brienne was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs under Louis XIV. On his bindings, see Dr. Robert Birley in The Library, 5th Series, vol. XVII, no. 2, p. 114 ff.

NUC lists two copies - Harvard and Yale.

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