RACINE (Jean). Lot n° 36

Esther. Tragedy from The Holy Writ. Paris, Claude Barbin, 1689. In-4, Jansenist red morocco, fillets on the cups, blue morocco lining decorated with a large golden lace with small corner irons, marbled double guards, gold edges on marbling (Trautz-Bauzonnet). Rare original edition. It is decorated with a frontispiece engraved by Sébastien Le Clerc after Charles Le Brun, who had contributed to the sets of the show. Composed at the request of Mme de Maintenon, the play was performed on January 26, 1689 in the majestic setting of the House of Saint-Cyr, for the limited audience of the Grandes de la Cour, and was a great success. "Esther is not only a circumstantial children's entertainment; it is a true promotion of childhood, a triumphant confusion of irresponsibility and happiness, an election of a delicious passivity, savoured by a whole choir of virgin-victims, whose songs, at once praise and complaints, form like the - sensual - "middle" of root happiness," wrote Roland Barthes in Sur Racine. A fine copy, with wide margins, in a fine Trautz-Bauzonnet lined binding. Antiquarian ex-libris with the initials C. J. surmounted by a cross of Saint-Cyr. From the Alfred Lindeboom library, with ex-libris. It does not appear in its sale. Insensitive trace of restoration on a plate, slightly yellowed paper, corner of 2 ff. of guard cut. Guibert, p. 95, n°1 - Tchemerzine, V, 347 - Le Petit, 374 - Rochebilière, n°409.