Germaine de Staal - Mémoires de Madame de Staal écrits par elle-même - 1755

Germaine de Staal. Memoirs of Madame de Staal written by herself. London, s.n., 1755, 321 pp., 298 pp., 284 pp., 247 pp.

4 volumes in-12 (170x100 mm), full morocco, gilt decorative spine, title piece in red morocco, red edges (bindings of the period). Very good overall condition of the bindings. Interior fresh.

Original posthumous edition, published under the false London address, probably printed in Paris.
The first three volumes contain the Memoirs; the fourth volume gathers two comedies, The Fashion and The Infatuation.

Memoirs of Marguerite-Jeanne Cordier de Launay, known as Madame de Staal. Of modest origin, she enters the service of the Duchess of Maine and frequents the brilliant intellectual and social circle surrounding her at the Château de Sceaux. She is notably involved in the Cellamare conspiracy against the Regent in 1718, which earns her imprisonment in the Bastille. After her release, she resumes her place near the Duchess of Maine and marries the Baron de Staal.

Her Memoirs constitute a particularly interesting testimony on aristocratic and intellectual life during the Régence and in the early years of Louis XV's reign.

Complete in 4 volumes