Romans Traduits de l’Anglois.
Amsterdam: 1761. First edition of these translations of early English fiction. Included are two excerpts from George Lyttleton’s Letters from a Persian in England (1735) and Aphra Behn’s Agnes de Castro (first published in 1688 and itself a translation from the French of J.B. Brillac). Boards lightly worn in places, intermittent faint dampstain in first half of work. Still, a good and attractive copy. Contemporary sheep, gilt spine with paste-paper labels. Octavo. [6], 267, [1, errata] pp. Item #14632
The translator is Marie-Geneviève Charlotte Darius Thiroux d’Arconville (1720-1805), the author of seventy mostly anonymous volumes of fiction, poetry, drama, essays on science, history, and translations from the English. “Her translations…best confirm Arconville’s austerity and interest in moral works. The most distinctive characteristic of her activities was her research in pnysics, anatomy, natural history, agriculture, botany and chemistry. Her Essai pour servir à l’histoire de la putrefaction and sixteen medical publications were widely recognized…” (Karyna Szmuyrlo in The Feminist Encyclopedia of French Literature).
OCLC lists one copy only, at Bayerische Staatsbibliothek.Rochedieu, p. 197. Cioranescu 61725.
Price: $1,250.00