Antoine Prévost d'Exiles - Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité qui s'est retiré du monde - 1737-1777

Antoine Prévost d'Exiles - Memoirs and Adventures of a Man of Quality Who Withdrew from the World - in The Hague, at M. G. Merville & J. Vander Kloot, 1737 and 1777 - 8 volumes in 3 volumes - 479 pp, 500 pp, 156 pp - full brown morocco of the period - in-12 - 10 x 17 cm.

Condition: 2 headcaps missing, spine in good condition, hinges solid, some corners shaved, back with raised bands ornamented with gilded fleuron ornaments and the title and volume numbers for volumes 1, and a smooth back ornamented with gilded tooling and the title piece, a few rare foxings, red edges and marbled edges. Complete.

From the library of the Luonnais writer François Cizeron-Rival (1726 - 1795) with manuscript ownership mark at the head of the first volume.

Content: The Memoirs and Adventures of a Man of Quality — understood as a noble soul — are the first novel by Abbé Prévost. From its publication in 1728, it fascinated his contemporaries and established his fame. It is the story of a tragic destiny. Having lost his kin and his inheritance, the hero, driven along the roads of Europe torn by the convulsions of wars, falls into the hands of the Turks. In addition to a tolerance unknown in his homeland, he discovers on the shores of the Bosphorus the dazzlement of love in the person of Selima, who soon dies giving him a daughter. Raised thus, he renounces the world. From this first work appear the major themes of Prévost: adventure, exotism, passion, the haunting of death, and above all the “quality” of a soul: capable of unlimited love, the hero shows a grandeur that lifts him above misfortune. This astonishing narrative, exploring the labyrinths of the inner world through the secret history, dreams, repressions and anxieties of a being, inaugurates a vast œuvre, a metaphysical inquiry into nature and happiness.

Volumes I to II: Youth and loves of the Marquis de Renoncour (the narrator).
Volumes III to IV: Travels of the narrator through Europe and the Ottoman Empire (meeting with Sélima).
Volumes V to VI: Stay in England and return to France.
Volumes VII and VIII: The independent and famous History of the Knight des Grieux and Manon Lescaut.