Beauharnais Fanny de Lot n° 594

The Blind for love. Amsterdam, And is in Paris, Gueffier, 1781. In-8, red morocco, double framing of fat and lean fillets crossing at the corners, dishes decorated with a semé of bees compartmentalized with dotted lines, coat of arms in the center, inner roulette, lining and guards of blue moire, roulette on the cups, golden slices (Meslant). Original edition of this novel by Fanny de Beauharnais, published anonymously. Gay-Lemonnyer, t. I, col. 2-3. Fanny de Beauharnais (1737-1813), née Marie-Anne-Françoise Mouchard de Chaban, married the brother-in-law of the future Empress Josephine. Very early attracted by literature, she composed verses which were collected in Mélanges de poésies fugitives et de prose sans conséquence (1772). L'Aveugle par amour is one of her charming fantasies on the theme of amorous feelings, such as Les Lettres de Stéphanie (1778) or Les Amants d'autrefois (1787). The academician and bibliophile Arthur Dinaux (1795-1864), who was one of the owners of this volume, detailed its provenance in a scholarly note, written and signed in his own hand, dated from his property in Montataire in 1861, on the first page: A very remarkable volume, so much so that its author, the Countess Fanny de Beauharnais, was linked with Voltaire, the great Frédéric, Buffon, J.J. Rousseau and Dorat, than by the characters through whose hands this book passed until it reached our modest collection. This book, having been composed by the aunt of Empress Josephine and the godmother of Queen Hortense, it is not surprising to see it enter the private library of Emperor Napoleon, who had it covered with a very luxurious binding for the time, enriched with a multitude of imperial bees, in the centre of which shines the coat of arms of the Empire. The palace binder, Meslant, surpassed himself on this occasion. From the Emperor's house, this volume passed to the author's granddaughter, the Dowager Grand Duchess St