LA BRUYERE, Jean de. Les Caractères de Theophraste traduits - Lot 59

LA BRUYERE, Jean de. Les Caractères de Theophraste traduits du grec ; avec Les Caractères ou les Mœurs de ce siècle. Published in Brussels by Jean Leonard in 1693. In-12 in a contemporary full brown leather binding, spine ribbed, gilt-lettered compartments, mahogany leather title-piece, cold-rolled edges. 26 ff.n.ch. (title, discourse on Theophraste), 584 pp, 4 ff.n.ch. (tables, excerpt from the privilege). Spine damaged, leather missing from headpieces and spinebands, minor spotting on covers. Rare Brussels edition censored by the publisher. Second state copy: four leaves have been removed and two cartons inserted. This resulted in two interruptions in the pagination, on pp. 455-456 and 463-464 (Tchemerzine VI 321). This edition, published following the text of the seventh original edition published in Paris in 1692, initially contained strong criticism of William of Orange and Maximilian of Bavaria, governor of the Spanish Netherlands then occupied by Louis XIV. Against the backdrop of the League of Augsburg war, editor Léonard extensively reworked the text, truncating the passages in which La Bruyère attacked opponents of the French monarchy. Les Caractères, the only work published by Jean de La Bruyère, is the fruit of more than a decade's work. The writing of this sequel to the Greek philosopher Theophrastus' Caractères began in 1670, and was interrupted by the author's death in 1696 with a ninth and final posthumous edition. In it, La Bruyère provides a rich description of the mores and characters he encountered as tutor to the Duc de Bourbon and the daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. Annotations in pen on the first endpaper, annotations and drawings in graphite on the endpapers, in the margin of the last page and on pages 50 and 51. Good, clean copy of this valuable historical account.