Neufchâtel, Paris, Guillot, 1786.
4 duodecimo volumes: I/ 272 pp. and 8 plates; II/ 312 pp. and 9 plates; III/ 312 pp. and 9 plates;
IV/ 324 pp., (8) ff., 8 plates.
Stitched, untrimmed, in blank temporary wrappers, with 4 red morocco slipcases with gilt fillets and chemises by Rivière & Son.
Exceptionally completed with:
Binet. Les Françaises. Suite de 17 planches gravées.
1786.
Oblong 4to (217 x 278 mm). Portfolio and slipcase in cardboard.
Complete suite of the 34 plates on 17 sheets intended to illustrate Les Françaises by Restif de la Bretonne, with printed slips bearing the title and volume numbering.
185 x 115 mm (text); 278 x 220 mm (suite)
Original edition of this collection of short stories, which are so many true tableaux of manners, written by the author in 26 days.
Collection of short stories and two theatrical pieces intended for young people of both sexes, included in the cycle of the Contemporaines, which “offer a general picture of our manners,” according to the Publisher’s Notice, where the author endeavored not to present mere trifles, issuing his famous warning prophesying the imminent Revolution: “Rich people, therefore be neither harsh nor insolent any longer, or you will hasten a disastrous revolution for yourselves! While there is still time, prevent it by becoming just and reasonable. […] Make useful use of your vast estates, or the State will take them from you” (La Femme dépensière, vol. II, p. 139).
This work is very rare; it contains 34 numbered engravings corresponding to the 34 examples included in the book. Only two of these figures are signed, the 28th and the 31st: Binet del., E. Giraud l’aîné scul.
In these prints, Restif no longer contented himself with commissioning from his draftsman women’s feet of extreme smallness; he imagined, by another oddity, giving the tallest women heads of such tiny dimensions that they seem not to belong to the bodies; he demanded that his draftsman represent young girls and young boys like spring-loaded dolls. Nothing is stranger than these long, thin women with Lilliputian heads, and those children who seem to come out of a jar of spirits. One may suppose that this was a new abnormal taste incubating in the eccentric imagination of the lover of small feet…
It has not yet been noted that, in these figures, most of them finely engraved, there are certainly portraits, among others that of an elderly woman who reappears constantly under different names in the Exemples. The portrait of Grimod de la Reynière fils is very striking in one of the three guests seated at table (print of La Femme d’ivrogne).” P. L. Jacob, Bibliographie des ouvrages de Restif de la Bretonne.
This original edition is therefore illustrated with 34 copperplate engravings by Giraud l’aîné after Louis Binet, numbered, two of which are signed (nos. 28 and 31). With the 8 unnumbered leaves at the end of volume IV containing a table of the Contemporaines and Parisiennes and other works by Restif.
“In none of Restif’s other works did Binet exaggerate to such an extent the smallness of the heads, feet, and the slenderness of women’s figures” (Cohen). Several figures from the author’s circle are represented in the illustrations, such as Grimod de la Reynière, whom the Bibliophile Jacob claims to recognize in figure 20 (III, p. 84) illustrating L’Épouse d’ivrogne.
The copy is complete with the 8 table leaves found at the end of the final volume.
Exceptional copy preserved in its extremely rare original wrappers, with the unobtainable complete oblong quarto suite.
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