With Fine Elzevirian Provenance
SCARRON, Paul.
Le marquis ridicule, ou la comtesse faite à la haste. Comedie … Suivant la copie imprimée à Paris. [Leiden, Elzevir,] 1656.
[bound with:]
[—.] L’escolier de Salamanque, ou les genereux ennemis. Tragi-comedie … Suivant la copie imprimée à Paris. [Leiden, Elzevir,] 1657.Two works in one vol., 12mo., pp. Marquis: 93, [3, blank], Escolier: 95, [1]; woodcut device to titles, woodcut head- and tailpieces and initials; fine copies bound in dark blue crushed morocco by Duru (stamped to front free endpaper), turn-ins roll-tooled in gilt, gilt edges, marbled endpapers, blue ribbon place-marker; book labels and bookplates of Charles Pieters, Joseph Rénard, Eduardo J. Bullrich, and Robert Hayhurst to front endpapers, Rénard’s manuscript notes to front flyleaf.
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Le marquis ridicule, ou la comtesse faite à la haste. Comedie … Suivant la copie imprimée à Paris.
First Elzevier editions, very rare, of these two plays by Scarron, pirated after the text of the first editions printed in Paris; a finely bound volume with excellent Elzevirian provenance.
Best known for his Roman comique (1651–7), a vivid picaresque about a company of strolling players, and as the first husband of the marquise de Maintenon, later wife of Louis XIV, Scarron was also a successful playwright who influenced Molière, adapting Spanish sources to the French stage. Le marquis ridicule (1656) is a bumpkin satire set in Madrid; L’Escolier de Salamanque (1655) ‘est un des plus beaux sujets Espagnols, qui ait paru sur le Theatre François depuis la belle Comedie du Cid’ (dedication).
The first editions of these plays are of great rarity, but these contemporary piracies, which were a staple of the Elzevirs, are also extremely scarce. Of Le marquis ridicule we have been able to trace only three copies, at Trinity College Dublin, Heidelberg, and Leiden (and only one copy of the first edition, at the Bibliothèque nationale); and of L’escolier de Salamanque only five copies (Senate House, and four in mainland Europe), plus two of the first edition. There have been no copies of any edition sold at auction since this volume last appeared in 1952.
Provenance:
1. M. Millot, the enigmatic nineteenth-century collector and bibliographer of Elzevir; his sale of 1846.
2. Charles Pieters (1782–1863), author of Annales de l’Imprimerie des Elzevir (1858), with bookplate.
3. Joseph Rénard (1822–1882), Lyonnais bibliophile, with his bookplate and neat manuscript notes; his sale of 1881.
4. Eduardo J. Bullrich (1895-1950), Argentine lawyer and collector; sold by Sotheby’s in 1952 (to Maggs, £12).
STCN 117297070 & 061466182; Willems 793 & 810; Pieters 92 & 98 (these copies); Rahir 797 & 814 (these copies).