.jpg?w=1)
Details
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, François, duc de (1613-1680). Reflexions ou sentences et maximes morales. Paris: Claude Barbin, 1665. 12° (151 x 80mm). Engraved frontispiece by Stéphane Picart after N. Poussin, woodcut ornaments. (Frontispiece restored at foremargin, title with hairline tear along margin, light browning of text, F2r with small correction in green, light worming at bottom margin towards end.) Red morocco by Huser, blind filleted sides and spine compartments, gilt lettering, blue morocco liners panelled in gilt and with central arabesque, vellum free endpapers, gilt edges. Provenance: annotation and a few corrections in a late 18th/early 19th-century hand -- purchased from André Meynial, 1951.
FIRST AUTHORISED EDITION, second state, 'cartonné', 23 lines, with maxims numbered to 316 and a final reflection on death. The first edition published in France, it was preceded by the piracy printed by the Elzevirs at Leyden in 1664. The maxims form a brilliant exposition of the power of 'l'amour propre' to corrupt reason, sustaining all their sharpness after a life of 350 years. 'La forme brève et volontiers paradoxale y devient outil d'investigation de la psyché. Toute la psychologie moderne est là en puissance, y compris le notion d'inconscient' (Jean Lafond). Cioranescu 40229; En francais dans le texte 101; Tchmerzine VII, 50-51.
FIRST AUTHORISED EDITION, second state, 'cartonné', 23 lines, with maxims numbered to 316 and a final reflection on death. The first edition published in France, it was preceded by the piracy printed by the Elzevirs at Leyden in 1664. The maxims form a brilliant exposition of the power of 'l'amour propre' to corrupt reason, sustaining all their sharpness after a life of 350 years. 'La forme brève et volontiers paradoxale y devient outil d'investigation de la psyché. Toute la psychologie moderne est là en puissance, y compris le notion d'inconscient' (Jean Lafond). Cioranescu 40229; En francais dans le texte 101; Tchmerzine VII, 50-51.