Voltaire - La Pucelle d'Orléans, poëme en vingt-un chants - 1799

Rare two-volume illustrated set of this major edition of 18th-century satirical literature, in which the writer revisits with provocative freedom the story of Joan of Arc, emblematic figure of the Hundred Years' War and of the French resistance to the English -

Far from offering a faithful historical chronicle or a solemn celebration of the national heroine, Voltaire distorts the episodes associated with the liberation of Orléans to compose a heroic-comic poem that blends epic parody, extravagant adventures, irreverent humor, and critique of religious beliefs -

Joan of Arc, young peasant girl who became a symbol of the struggle against the English occupation, is at the center of a narrative in which military events are combined with burlesque episodes, supernatural interventions and deliberately excessive situations -

Voltaire - La Pucelle d'Orléans, poem in twenty-one cantos - 1799 - Volume I and II - Crapelet -
xiii, [1], 223, [1]; [4], 243pp,

Good condition of bindings, works in their full marble calf leather original, slight epidermal wear, wear from use, some minor defects on boards and spine, heads, corners and joints worn, foxing on edges, fore-edges dulled, smooth spine with gilt titles and tomaisons on green leather pieces, gilt borders framing the boards -

Interior condition correct, nevertheless, moisture at outer margin of pages, does not affect text or engravings but the end margins of pages are generally more or less cut, works enriched with superb engravings in black off text including a portrait in the frontispiece, blue endpapers in acceptable condition, pleasant overall -

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