Details
[DU PONT, GRATIEN]. Controverses des sexes Masculin & Foemenin. Paris: Denys Janot 1540. 16mo, 111 x 71 mm. (4 3/8 x 2 13/16 in.), ? eighteenth-century olive morocco, covers gilt-panelled, flat spine gilt in compartments, red morocco lettering-piece, edges marbled and gilt, extremities slightly rubbed, spine sunned, repaired marginal tear to PP6 catching 2 letters, a few other marginal repairs, small stain to HH1 obscuring 4 letters, lightly washed. 4 parts in one (books 1-3 and the Requete du sexe masculin contre le sexe foemenin), each with separate title and separately paginated, 257 leaves, roman type, 3 title woodcuts, approximately 98 small text woodcuts, including repeats, woodcut initials.
Fifth edition of this curious poetical tour de force, combining a polemical diatribe with a manuel of poetics, in which the author employs virtually every form of poetical composition known and used at the time in a spirited attack on the female sex, numerous examples of whose perfidiousness he relates with gleeful malice. The first edition, an unillustrated folio printed in Toulouse in 1534, was a great success, and smaller format reediitons appeared every year from 1534 to 1541. The violent opposition that it aroused (Étienne Dolet was one of its most vociferous detractors) incited Du Pont to add the Requete, a further defence of his views, explicitly directed at "ceux et celles qui medisent de l'Autheur", to the second and subsequent editions. The woodcuts in this edition belong to two or three different passe-partout series. All editions are RARE. Brunet II, 251-2; Suppl. I, 294; Fairfax Murray French (1534 edition); Rothschild III, 2596 (1534 edition) and I, 624 (1537 ed.).
Provenance: "Pour Francois Prados(?)", early inscription on title (washed, faint) -- Jacques Godot, eighteenth-century ms. ex-libris on title -- Various nineteenth-century shelf-marks and notes at front (one dated Dec. 1815) -- P. Brunet, bookplate (sale, Paris, 18-19 November 1935).
Fifth edition of this curious poetical tour de force, combining a polemical diatribe with a manuel of poetics, in which the author employs virtually every form of poetical composition known and used at the time in a spirited attack on the female sex, numerous examples of whose perfidiousness he relates with gleeful malice. The first edition, an unillustrated folio printed in Toulouse in 1534, was a great success, and smaller format reediitons appeared every year from 1534 to 1541. The violent opposition that it aroused (Étienne Dolet was one of its most vociferous detractors) incited Du Pont to add the Requete, a further defence of his views, explicitly directed at "ceux et celles qui medisent de l'Autheur", to the second and subsequent editions. The woodcuts in this edition belong to two or three different passe-partout series. All editions are RARE. Brunet II, 251-2; Suppl. I, 294; Fairfax Murray French (1534 edition); Rothschild III, 2596 (1534 edition) and I, 624 (1537 ed.).
Provenance: "Pour Francois Prados(?)", early inscription on title (washed, faint) -- Jacques Godot, eighteenth-century ms. ex-libris on title -- Various nineteenth-century shelf-marks and notes at front (one dated Dec. 1815) -- P. Brunet, bookplate (sale, Paris, 18-19 November 1935).