Rabelais / Le Duchat - Œuvres - 1711

RABELAIS, FRANÇOIS AND LE DUCHAT, JACOB — MASTERWORKS OF FRANÇOIS RABELAIS

AMSTERDAM, HENRI BORDESIUS, 1711, 5 VOLUMES, ORIGINAL EDITION BY LE DUCHAT WITH PLATES AND FOLD-OUT MAP.
Amsterdam: Henri Bordesius, 1711.
5 volumes in-12. Full period calf, spine with raised bands ornamented.
Precious and rare original edition of the famous critical revision by Jacob Le Duchat, complete in five volumes at Bordesius in Amsterdam.

This is the very first edition to offer continuous and rigorous commentary on the Rabelaisian text. Le Duchat elucidates the incredible vocabulary, dialectal obscurities, XVIth-century political allusions, and Rabelais’s religious satire.

This Amsterdam edition is distinguished by the superior quality of its engraving in copperplate, including the very famous folding “Map of the Chinonnois” (which accurately maps the author’s birthplace between Chinon, Seuilly, and La Devinière) and the architectural and picturesque representations related to the author’s life.

Magnificent copy preserved in its uniform period full brown morocco binding. The five spines with raised bands are especially fresh, with very bright gilding at the panels. Bindings solid, edges and corners well preserved. Interior very clean on laid paper, complete with the frontispiece and the folding plates/maps. Slight marginal dampstain at the foot of the title page of volume 1 (without seriousness), presence of the very fine eighteenth-century De Launoy ex-libris seal on the title.