RESTIF DE LA BRETONNE (Nicolas-Edme).

RESTIF DE LA BRETONNE (Nicolas-Edme).

Les Françaises, ou XXXIV exemples choisis dans les moeurs actuelles, propres à diriger. Neufchatel, Guillot, 1786. 4 vol. in-12, red morocco, richly decorated ribbed spines, triple gilt fillet framing the boards with gilt arms in the center of the upper boards, double gilt fillet on the edges, wide gilt inner border, gilt edges (20th-century English binding signed Rivière & son). First edition published without figures of this collection of short stories, true tableaux de moeurs, which took the author 26 days to complete. "I give these four volumes the title Les Françaises, because the thirty-four examples that make them up offer a general picture of our morals, where young people and women of all ages will find the duties of their state, the means to be virtuous, agreeable to their parents and spouses, respectable to their children and cherished by their fellow citizens" (publisher's notice). This publication also includes two dramas in 5 acts, one entitled La Fille naturelle (The Natural Daughter) at the end of the second volume, and the other entitled La Cigale et la Fourmi (The Cicada and the Ant) at the end of the last volume. It was in Volume I that Rétif prophesied the Revolution and the agrarian reforms that most countries would experience in the 19th and 20th centuries. A precious copy in morocco with the coat of arms of Arthur Wills Percy Wellington Blundell Trumbull Hill, 7th Marquess of Downshire (1894 - 1989), politician, military man and Irish peer, or of his brother Arthur Francis Henry Hill (1895 - 1953).