"Works of Jean-François Regnard (...)". Tomes I, II & III.
A Paris, de l'Imp. d'A. EgronMDCCCXVI (1816).
Contents: Tome I: Notice sur Regnard, Catalogue des comedies de Regnard, La Serenade; Le Bal; Le Joueur (1696); Le Distrait (1697); Attendez-moi sous l’orme; Tome II: Démocrite amoureux et Le Retour imprévu (1700); Les Folies amoureuses (1704); Le Mariage et la Folie; Les Ménechmes (1705); Tome III: Le Légataire universel (1708); Les Souhaits; Les Vendanges ou le Bailli d'Anieres; Sapor; Le Carnaval de Venise (1699); Orphee aux Enfers; Poesies diverses; Sur le Mariage - stances, Satire contre les maris.
Hardcover binding. Leather spine. Text in french. 1082 pages in total (354+354+374), 13,5 x 9 x 2 cm.
Acceptable/Good condition (inner binding issues, books do not open perfectly, foxing, yellow/brown stains, few creased pages' corners, tiny/small piece of paper missing from few leaves' margin/edges/corners not affecting text, paper merely creasy on few leaves, few leaves more-foxed-than-the-average, worn cover where stains, scratches, bent/cracked/rubbed boards' corners, cracks near spine, holes, fragile parts, tears/creases, fragile parts on spine, pieces missing, &c.
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Note: Jean-François Regnard (1655-1709), "the most distinguished, after Molière, of the comic poets of the seventeenth century", was a dramatist, born in Paris, who is equally famous now for the travel diary he kept of a voyage in 1681. Regnard inherited a fortune from his father, a successful merchant who had given him an excellent classical education; he then increased it, he affirms, by gambling. He took to traveling, and on a return voyage from Italy in 1678 was at the age of twenty-two captured by an Algerian pirate, sold as a slave in Algiers and taken to Constantinople, where the French consul paid ransom for his release. He went on traveling, undaunted. His Voyage de Flandre et de Hollande, commencé le 26 avril 1681 reporting his trip through the Low Countries, Denmark and Sweden, where he dallied at the courts of Christian V and Charles XI and then north to Lapland, returning through Poland, Hungary and Germany to France, is mined by social historians. The section often published on its own, his Voyage de Laponie, largely inspired by Johannes Schefferus, describes the way of life of the Sami of Lapland; it was not published until 1731, when its description of the backwardness and simplicity of the Sami people, their curious pagan customs, alcohol addiction and untidy lifestyle, introduced these strangers to cultured Europe. After his return to Paris he purchased a sinecure in the Treasury that required no attention, and wrote farces and skits for the Théâtre des italiens, 1688-96. After inheriting his mother's considerable fortune in 1693, he devoted the time divided between his hôtel in Paris and his country house, the château of Grillon, near Dourdan, to writing comedies in verse for the Comédie française, twenty-three in total, the best of them being Le Joueur ("The Gamester", 1696), Le Distrait (1697), Les Menechmes and his masterwork, Le Légataire universelle ("The residuary legatee", 1706), following closely in the steps of Molière. He was admired by Boileau.