[Rarebooks] fa: VOLTAIRE - NOUVEAUX MELANGES PHILOSOPHIQUES 1765 - Ex-Libris LYTTON STRACHEY w/ Bookplates Designed by DORA CARRINGTON

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, October 11. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/y2u33wdl

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


[Voltaire:] Nouveaux Melanges Philosophiques, Historiques, Critiques, &c. &c. Premiere[-troisieme] partie. [Geneva: Cramer,] 1765. Three volumes, 8vo (21 cm), in early/period polished calf, spines tooled and lettered in gilt; [2], 376 pp.; 388 pp.; 430 pp.; with the half-titles, woodcut head-pieces and initials.

LYTTON STRACHEY'S COPY, with his Dora Carrington-designed bookplate on the front paste-downs of all three volumes. This is the larger, and apparently rarer, of the two versions of the bookplate, measuring 1 13/16" wide x 1 5/16" tall. On March 20, 1931, ten month's before her platonic lover's death and less than a year before her own suicide, Carrington wrote a haunting entry in her diary: "As I stuck the book plates in with Lytton I suddenly thought of Sothebys and the book plates in some books I had looked at when Lytton was bidding for a book and I thought: These books will one day be looked at by those gloomy faced booksellers and buyers. And suddenly a premonition of a day when these labels will no longer [be] in this library came over me. I longed to ask Lytton not to stick in any more" (David Garnett, ed., Carrington: Letters and Extracts from Her Diaries, 1970). Of additional interest, the volumes show occasional penciled annotations to the margins, presumably in Strachey's hand, generally of a bibliographical nature, noting the essays that appear here for the first time or highlighting text that was not included in previous editions. Strachey had an abiding affection for Voltaire, sharing many of the French satirist's views on religion and human nature, and Strachey's "exquisite" writing style has been likened to that of his predecessor. Strachey wrote a number of essays and articles on Voltaire, including two small gems ("Voltaire's Tragedies" and "Voltaire and Frederick the Great") in his Books & Characters, French and English" (1922).

Though his Nouveaux Melanges eventually expanded to fill nineteen volumes (the last appearing in 1776), Voltaire originally intended them to comprise only three, thus these first three volumes are generally considered a complete work in themselves. This was Voltaire's attempt to publish complete and accurate texts of many of his most important essays, some of which appear here for the first time (as indicated by Strachey's notes in the tables of contents).

Bindings with some bumping and wear to the corners, joints cracked but holding; damp-stain to the first 8 leaves of vol. II, mild toning and occasional light spotting elsewhere, otherwise clean and sound, handsomely bound.