BOSSUET (Jacques-Bénigne). Lot n° 33

Œuvres. Paris, J.-B. Coignard, Antoine Boudet, 1747-1749. 12 vols. - Défense de la déclaration de l'assemblée du clergé de France de 1682. [Followed by] Defensio declarationis conventûs cleri gallicani. Amsterdam [Paris ?], the Company, 1745. 5 vols. - Posthumous works. Ibid. 1753. 3 vols. - Sermons. Paris, Antoine Boudet, 1772-1778. 4 vols. Together 24 volumes in-4, speckled calf, triple gilt fillet, coat of arms in the centre, spine decorated, inner lace, speckled edges (Binding of the time). Second collective edition of Bossuet's works, using the famous edition known as the Paris edition, published under the direction of Abbé Pérau in 1743-1747. It was printed in several editions between 1747 and 1749 and the copies contain volumes of one or the other issue. The first volume is decorated with a portrait of Bossuet after Hyacinthe Rigaud engraved by J. Devaux (instead of the one sometimes found, signed Petit). The twelve volumes of the Works published during Bossuet's lifetime are completed by eight other volumes published by Abbé Leroy, under the Amsterdam heading, in 1745 and 1753: volumes XIII-XVII contain the Defensio, in Latin, accompanied by its first French translation, by the aforementioned Leroy; and volumes XVIII-XX contain the first edition of the posthumous Works. Rare complete set of the twenty volumes, which are difficult to find together. One joined, moreover, the four volumes of the Sermons of Bossuet in the edition of Dom Deforis, remained unfinished. They are presented here in a separate edition, under the title of Sermons, but their collation corresponds to that of volumes IV to VII of the 1772-1788 edition. The binding, similar but not uniform, has fallen continuously from XXI to XXIV. A copy bearing the arms of Count Marie-Antoine de Puiseux, born in 1846, with his bookplate. Bindings defective: missing headpieces, spines cracked, a few small chips and scratches; interior generally fresh, despite rare foxing and a few yellowed leaves. 2 ff. table displaced in the last volume. Verlaque, 102-109.