Description
François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon (1651-1715). Petit Telemaque, Ou Precis des Aventures de Telemaque, Fils d’Ulysse, d’Apres l’Ouvrage de Fenelon; Dedie a l’Enfance et Publie par un Instituteur [The Adventures of Telemachus, The Son of Ulysses.]. Paris & Amsterdam: Chex P. Blanchard, Libraire, Palais Royal; Chez Chanal, Libraire, dans le War-maës-straart., 1812, 1813. Seconde Édition. pp. vi, 215. 12mo. Bound in lovely full period leather with gilt rules, borders and lettering to spine, and boards. Hand-coloured engraved frontispiece and title page plus four additional leaves of engravings all beautifully hand-coloured. Lightest edgewear to the extremities; contents bright, clean, and unmarked with tight, sound binding. The leather binding has recently been professionally replenished, and treated with a natural leather preserver. An exceptionally well preserved, and handsome presentation. Scarce in this condition; very good+ to near fine. First published anonymously in 1699, Telemaque, proved to be an immensely popular work of the 18th and 19th centuries in France, and abroad; being translated into every European language as well as a version rendered into Latin verse. It inspired and was purported to be a favourite of such luminaries as: Marmontel, Voltaire, Montesquieu, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Gottfried Herder, Alfred Lord Tennyson, and of American statesman Thomas Jefferson. It also inspired imitations, such as the Abbé Jean Terrasson’s novel, Life of Sethos as well as forming the plot for Mozart’s opera, Idomeneo. David Avrom Bell, wrote of Telemachus: “Fénelon’s story stood as a powerful rebuke to the aristocratic court culture that dominated European societies, with its perceived artificiality, hypocrisy, and monumental selfishness. The book did not simply express these feelings; it helped shape and popularize them. From its wellspring of sentimentality, a river of tenderly shed tears would flow straight through the eighteenth century, fed by Richardson, Greuze, and Rousseau, among others, finally to pour out into the broad sea of Romanticism”. Leather Bound. (#1541) $395.00