Oeuvres

Name: Oeuvres
SKU: 32305
Price: 1440 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Molière

Paris, Librairie des bibliophiles, then Jouaust, 1889–1895.

18 vols. (110 x 175 mm). Half tan calf with corners, spines ribbed and decorated with gilt compartments and fleurons, brown morocco title-piece, date gilt at foot, gilt fillets on covers, top edges gilt on the rough, original wrappers preserved (binding signed Loisellier-Le Douarin).

The Jouaust collection “Les pièces de Molière.”

Each volume is accompanied by notices and notes by Auguste Vitu, continued after his death by Georges Monval. The particularly appealing illustrations are by Maurice Leloir, etched by Champollion, with a frontispiece for each volume.

Printed in a small print run; this copy unnumbered, on fine Arches laid paper.

The set comprises:

Le Dépit amoureux, 1888, (xv)-120 pp.; Les Précieuses ridicules, 1889, (xvi)-58 pp.; Sganarelle, 1889, (xi)-67 pp.; Don Garcie de Navarre, 1889, (xi)-95 pp.; L’École des Maris, 1889, (xi)-79 pp.; La Critique de l’École des Femmes, 1890, (xix)-66 pp.; L’Impromptu de Versailles, 1890, (xv)-55 pp.; Le Mariage forcé followed by Le Ballet, 1891, (vii)-63 pp.; La Princesse d’Élide, 1891, (ix)-93 pp.; Don Juan, 1891, (xii)-124 pp.; L’Amour médecin, 1892, (xii)-62 pp.; Le Médecin malgré lui, 1892, (vii)-87 pp.; Mélicerte, followed by Pastorale comique, 1892, (vii)-54 pp.; Le Sicilien, ou l’Amour peintre, 1892, (xi)-46 pp.; George Dandin, 1893, (x)-88 pp.; Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, 1894, (xix)-108 pp.; Les Amants magnifiques, 1894, (xii)-100 pp.; La Comtesse d’Escarbagnas, 1895, (xv)-48 pp.

The set is completed by the volume of the Chronologie molièresque, published to close the series.

This publication should not be confused with the Théâtre complet of J.-B. Poquelin de Molière issued by Jouaust in eight volumes between 1876 and 1883. This is a more fragmented undertaking, and also more bibliophilic in spirit, in which each play becomes its own small volume, enriched with its own critical apparatus and specific illustration. It fully reflects the manner of Damase Jouaust, a great craftsman of the book at the end of the nineteenth century, attentive to fine papers and fine typography. Begun under the imprint of the Librairie des bibliophiles, the series continued through the very years in which Jouaust gradually withdrew from business, after selling his stock to Flammarion in 1891 and then his printing house to Léopold Cerf in 1893.

A handsome series, delicately bound.

“A handsome edition, highly regarded; unfortunately this artist illustrated little” (Carteret, IV, 286).

#32305

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