Details
LOUIS-MARIE BAJOT
Eloge de la Paume et de ses avantages, sous le rapport de la santé et du développement des facultés physiques. Paris: chez l'auteur, [1806]. 8° (19.8 x 12cm), [2] 156p., with half-title (half-title and title lightly soiled and repaired at foremargin), brown morocco gilt by Thomas Alcott, c. 1950, top edge gilt, others uncut. Exhibited: The Queen's Club, 2004, no. 307.
Second edition. No copy of the first edition of 1800 is recorded in BnF, and the second is probably the earliest that any collector can hope to obtain. Unlike the first, the second edition included a preliminary essay, "valuable historical notes" (Noel and Clark), and the rules of longue paume at the end. In a preliminary poem "A la Jeunesse", Bajot insists that "Par l'exercise on conserve la vie" and he gives youth the radical advice to "Ferme le livre et vole à la raquette". Born in 1775, he was not a physician but a clerk and bibliographer in the Marine who contributed to the Annales maritimes and wrote the Abrégé historique et chronologique des principaux voyages de découvertes par mer (1829). He also had an interest in education, publishing a Discours on the best method of education for an administrator in 1810. Besides emphasising the physical and mental benefits of the game, the Eloge includes valuable precepts on how to play, being not only a product of the author's literary leanings but of the athletic ability which, as Marshall records (p. 51), made him a great player of longue paume. Noel and Clark observe (p. 287) that "this book was the foundation of La Paume, son histoire et sa description" by Chapus and Fournier (see lot 80). Garnett p. 292; Henderson p. 188.
Eloge de la Paume et de ses avantages, sous le rapport de la santé et du développement des facultés physiques. Paris: chez l'auteur, [1806]. 8° (19.8 x 12cm), [2] 156p., with half-title (half-title and title lightly soiled and repaired at foremargin), brown morocco gilt by Thomas Alcott, c. 1950, top edge gilt, others uncut. Exhibited: The Queen's Club, 2004, no. 307.
Second edition. No copy of the first edition of 1800 is recorded in BnF, and the second is probably the earliest that any collector can hope to obtain. Unlike the first, the second edition included a preliminary essay, "valuable historical notes" (Noel and Clark), and the rules of longue paume at the end. In a preliminary poem "A la Jeunesse", Bajot insists that "Par l'exercise on conserve la vie" and he gives youth the radical advice to "Ferme le livre et vole à la raquette". Born in 1775, he was not a physician but a clerk and bibliographer in the Marine who contributed to the Annales maritimes and wrote the Abrégé historique et chronologique des principaux voyages de découvertes par mer (1829). He also had an interest in education, publishing a Discours on the best method of education for an administrator in 1810. Besides emphasising the physical and mental benefits of the game, the Eloge includes valuable precepts on how to play, being not only a product of the author's literary leanings but of the athletic ability which, as Marshall records (p. 51), made him a great player of longue paume. Noel and Clark observe (p. 287) that "this book was the foundation of La Paume, son histoire et sa description" by Chapus and Fournier (see lot 80). Garnett p. 292; Henderson p. 188.
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