FÉNELON (François de Salignac de La Mothe). - Lot 33

FÉNELON (François de Salignac de La Mothe). Les Avantures de Télémaque, fils d'Ulysse. Nouvelle édition, Conforme au Manuscrit original. Amsterdam: J. Weistein, G. Smith; Rotterdam: Jean Hofhout, 1734. -Large in-4, 370x254: frontispiece, (2 ff.), 1 portrait, X, XXVI, 395 pp. 24 plates. Red morocco, gilt Greek roulette framing the boards, ornate ribbed spine, inner gilt roulette, gilt edges (period binding). Cohen, 381-382. The finest 18th-century illustrated edition of this famous novel by François de Salignac de La Mothe Fénelon. It features a frontispiece engraved by Jacob Folkema after Bernard Picart, a title vignette engraved by Pieter Tanjé after Louis Fabricius Dubourg, an out-of-text portrait of the author engraved by Pierre Drevet after Joseph Vivien, 24 bands engraved by Pieter Tanjé, Claude Duflos and Jacob Folkema after Louis Fabricius Dubourg, 21 culs-de-lampe engraved by Claude Duflos and Jan Schenk after Louis Fabricius Dubourg (the current edition has only 19) and 24 beautiful plates engraved by Balthasar Bernaerts, Philipp Van Gunst, Louis Surugue and Jacob Folkema after Louis Fabricius Dubourg, Bernard Picart and Guillaume-François-Laurent Debrie. ONE OF 150 EXEMPLIES ON LARGE PAPER, IN LARGE IN-4 FORMAT, not in-folio as Cohen says, with the text framed in typographical motifs, and with a collation different from the current edition. As Cohen points out, "most copies stop at page 395", which is the case here. Originally, the edition actually included 5 other pieces that have been removed. The first of these, entitled Examen de conscience pour un Roi and advertised on the verso of the last leaf, had been deemed seditious. A very handsome and attractive copy in contemporary morocco. A few traces of wear and tear, small corner missing, spine slightly faded. Perfect condition except for a tear in the lower margin of folio Oo3.