Pink-paper issue bound with lime-bark paper impression
Oeuvres.
12mo (80 x 127 mm). Two copies in one: (4), 156 pp.; (8), 156 pp. (the first copy printed on pink paper, the second on paper made from the bark of a lime tree). Followed by 20 specimen leaves of papers at end. Contemporary full French calf, smooth spine gilt with red morocco lettering piece. All edges speckled; pink mottled paper endleaves. Stored in custom-made red half morocco solander case with gilt spine.
€ 12.500,00
A striking document of late Enlightenment experimentation in paper-making: two impressions of Villette’s collected writings bound together, one on pink stock and one printed entirely on paper manufactured from lime-bark (this latter version also includes the three-page dedication to Charles Louis, marquis de Ducrest).
Issued with a false London imprint but produced in the Montargis area, where Pierre-Alexandre Léorier Delisle pursued highly publicized paper-making experiments to replace rag stock with fibres drawn from common plants and barks. The appended suite of 20 bound-in paper specimens functions as a miniature sample-book of these trials, comprising sheets made from materials such as marsh mallow, nettle, hops, moss, reeds, algae, couch-grass root, assorted woods, and the barks of several trees.
The literary contents are chiefly verse and occasional pieces and include selections from Villette’s correspondence with Voltaire, who died in Villette’s Paris hôtel in 1778. A pink-paper printing of this book has been described in the literature as exceptional; the present volume offers such an impression alongside the lime-bark issue.
Owned by the bookseller Emil Offenbacher (1908-90) of Queens, who sold the book on 20 Dec. 1955 to Cornelius J. Hauck (1893-1967) of Cincinnati, Ohio, a bibliophile primarily known for his collection of books on botany and horticulture.
Tchemerzine V, 641. Barbier, Histoire de l’édition française II, 545. Basanoff, Le papier botanique 107-135. Hunter, Papermaking History and Technique, 327f. Hunter, Literature of Papermaking 41.
