Antoine RIBEAUCOURT (circa 1835-1905 ?) translator and print - Lot 261

Lot n° 261
Go to lot
Estimation :
200 - 300 EUR
Antoine RIBEAUCOURT (circa 1835-1905 ?) translator and print - Lot 261
Antoine RIBEAUCOURT (circa 1835-1905 ?) translator and printer. Autograph manuscript signed "A.R.", Note du Traducteur, [1883 ?]; 2 pages in-4 in pencil. Preliminary text to his extremely rare translation of Pietro Aretino's Ragionamenti, printed by him on a hand press in only 15 copies. Rare manuscript of this forgotten maverick of the French clandestine erotic edition. Guillaume Apollinaire praises him, and Pierre Louÿs had manuscripts by Ribeaucourt. [See David Chambers, "Antoine Ribeaucourt: translator, printer," Bulletin du bibliophile, 2008, no. 1, pp. 114-128.] "Although they have a more refined language and a greater respect for propriety, are the men of the 19th century actually more virtuous than those of the 16th when Aretinus wrote his Ragionamenti? It is permissible to doubt it when one remembers that the nature of man has not changed and that the bases on which morality was founded then have remained the same. Catholicism, which had shaped the morals of that time, still exerts its fatal influence on us", notably through the Jesuits... "No printer in France would have consented to expose himself to their rigor by printing my translation of the Ragionamenti, and, as I was anxious that it should not be lost and could be popularized when at last freedom could exist without hindrance in the country of Rabelais and Voltaire, I formed the project of printing myself about fifteen copies; but it was not an easy thing for a man completely ignorant of the typographical art" .... He set to work, "having to carry out it only a wooden frame of 20 centimeters length on 13 broad, a small roller with hand and a few hundreds of characters, which allowed me to compose and to print only one page at the same time"...
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue