Louise de Kéralio - Histoire d’Elisabeth, Reine d’Angleterre - 1786

KÉRALIO, Louise-Félicité Guinement de
History of Elizabeth, Queen of England, drawn from the original Anglo writings, acts, titles, letters & other manuscripts not yet published.
Paris, Subscriptions may be made through the Author, 17, rue de Grammont, & Lagrange, Bookseller, at the Palais Royal, 123, 1786 (M. DCC. LXXXVI). Original edition.

Complete set in 5 large octavos (antique full calf binding, spines with raised bands, title pieces in red morocco and volume numbers on dark ground):
* Volume I: Frontispiece engraved (portrait of Elizabeth I by N. Thomas after Adriaen van der Werff, dated 1786), [2] f., (title, preface), 166 pp. (Preliminary discourse), 374 pp.
* Volume II: [2] f., 512 pp.
* Volume III: [2] f., 514 pp.
* Volume IV: [2] f., 518 pp.
* Volume V: [2] f., 408 pp., [2] f. (Approval & Privilege of the King).

Complete with the engraved portrait of Elizabeth I in the frontispiece of volume 1. Magnificent, homogeneous set in an antique full calf binding, gold-tooled title and volume pieces, fleurons in the compartments, sprinkled edges, minimal rubbing on the hinges. Small losses at the borders of some bindings near the corners (visible in the photos).

A major work in eighteenth-century French feminine historiography, this History of Elizabeth is the capital work of Louise-Félicité Guinement de Kéralio (1758–1821), one of the intellectual figures and pioneers of journalism and women’s rights under the French Revolution.
Published at the author’s expense at the Palais Royal in 1786, this first substantial critical biography of Elizabeth I in French relies on a methodical and unpublished body of British manuscript sources and state archives. The work was praised by the Enlightenment critics for the rigor of its historical method and the finesse of its political analysis of the Tudor monarchical system.

Louise de Kéralio was the first woman to run a political journal in France (Le Mercure national in 1789). Before playing a leading role at the Cordeliers Club alongside her husband François Robert, she spent several years translating English and Italian manuscripts in her father’s library. When she published this History of Elizabeth, King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette personally subscribed to the work, impressed by the talent of this witty young woman who dared to engage on equal terms with the historians of the Academy."