Tag Archive: 0French

We love to learn about new and obscure methods of printing, illustration, and reproduction, so it was a treat to recently stumble across a portrait produced by a method we had never encountered before: physionotrace. Physionotrace, ‘the first system invented to produce multiple copies of a portrait, was invented in 1786 by Gilles-Louis Chrétien (1774–1811).  […]

We have just released a new e-list relating to Anglomanie, or the madness for all things English in 18th-century France, and figured we would share with our readers one of our favourites from the list: Nancy, published in 1767 by François-Thomas-Marie de Baculard d’Arnaud (1718–1805). Our copy is bound with another of his novels, Lucie […]

In anticipation of Firsts, we thought we would highlight one of our favourite ‘firsts’: a first edition, first issue of Chroniques Françoises de Jacques Gondar (Paris, Firmin Didot for Louis Janet, 1830), in a stunning blind-stamped velvet binding…

I have long been interested in dictionaries, even before I completed my MA in Lexicography twenty years ago.  One book we shall be exhibiting at the London Rare Book Fair next week is this: It’s a copy of the first edition of Trésor des origines et dictionnaire grammatical raisonné de la langue française (1819).  Although […]

This is a copy of the first appearance in print of Il musico prattico, by the Maltese composer and theorist Francesco Az[z]opardi (1748–1809).  It was later ‘introduced as a textbook in Paris by Grétry: Cherubini based the 19th chapter of his treatise Cours de contrepoint (1835) on its analysis of imitation’ (New Grove).  The translator is Nicolas-Etienne […]

This is a book I’ve only had once before, and I was pleased to find it again.  It’s the first edition of a novel which appeared the following year in English translation, in both London and Dublin, as The Englishman’s Fortnight in Paris; or, the Art of ruining himself there in a few Days.  The ‘Londres’ […]