Lot n° 117
Estimation :
300 - 400
EUR
CORNEILLE (Pierre). Le Cid tragi-comedie. Paris, Augustin Co - Lot 117
CORNEILLE (Pierre). Le Cid tragi-comedie. Paris, Augustin Courbé, 1637.
In-12 of [3] ff. 122 pp. Contemporary ivory vellum. Vellum gnawed in places and missing. Engraved frontispiece added. Tear with missing endpaper.
This edition of Le Cid is a counterfeit made in the same year as the play was published; it is most likely the first to have been made. The place of printing may be Paris, Caen or Rouen (rather the latter if we compare the typographical ornaments of this edition with some of those of the Inventaire général de la Muse normande, 1654-1655). Frère and Picot ignore this edition. However, Pelay and Leverdier, in their "Additions à la Bibliogr. cornélienne de Picot", mention it on p. 43 under no. 2721 - it should be noted that the copy they saw at the beginning of the century was incomplete at the end.
Particularities of the text in the recognized variants:
Rodrigue's 3rd stanza, p. 22 of this ed. corresponds to the one described by Picot, p. 13, no. 3: "... Illustrious tyranny, adorable constraint..." This variant therefore corresponds to the text of the princeps edition (in-4°) completed on March 23, 1637 (the March 24 edition has another variant). In short, the 3rd stanza corresponds to Picot's variant no. 1, which places it immediately in the wake of the very first original.
In 1640, the same printer produced another forgery, described by Pelay and Leverdier as n°2752.
A very rare and interesting step in the evolution of the text of this tragedy (source: previous owner's notice). Ex-libris J.M.
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue