[GOUDAR, Ange]

Lot 79
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Estimation :
150 - 200 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 354EUR
[GOUDAR, Ange]
L'Espion chinois, ou L'Envoyé secret de la cour de Pékin, pour examiner l'état présent de l'Europe. Translated from the Chinese. Cologne, 1773. 6 volumes in-12 (169 x 95 mm) of VIII, 197 pp. 11 ff.n.c. for volume I; 2 ff.n.c., 309 pp. 11 ff.n.c. for volume II; 2 ff.n.c., 331 pp. 13 ff.n.c. for volume III ; 2 ff.n.c., 351 pp. 11 ff.n.c. for volume IV ; 2 ff.n.c., 309 pp. 9 ff.n.c. for volume V ; 2 ff.n.c., 207 pp. 7 ff.n.c. for volume VI Marbled basane, spine ribbed and decorated, red edges (period binding). Quérard, III, 418; see INED, 2077 (e.o. 1765) & Einaudi, 2658. This important epistolary novel was a great success in the book trade since its first publication in 1764. Allegedly written by two Chinese, it targets the entire society and political regime of the Ancien Regime. Ange Goudar (1708-1791), "economist, historian, musicographer, and novelist of the Canaille, he was the man of all sewers. Casanova, who had him as a debauched companion in London and in Naples, depicted him in his memoirs as 'a man of wit, a pimp, a thief at play, a police spy, a false witness, deceitful, bold and ugly'... His literary output is hardly better known than his life... L'Espion chinois, a narrative by letters and satire of French society, published anonymously in 1764 and sometimes attributed to Voltaire, this work went through nine editions between 1764 and 1773 and contains perhaps the best pages of its author" (Angelet & Herman, Société française d' étude du XVIIIème siècle, p. 85). First title and last leaf of volume IX formerly lined, otherwise a very good and well bound copy. Provenance: unidentified engraved bookplate from the 18th century.
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