A classic of eighteenth-century French erotica in an extremely rare edition

Nerciat, Andréa de. Le Diable au Corps.

€ 18,000.00

A notorious work of erotica from a contemporary of De Sade and Casanova, here in a particularly fine and rare printing of the first complete edition of 1803. Its full publication delayed by the French Revolution, Le Diable au Corps is a testimony to the adventurousness of the libertine imagination at the end of the eighteenth century.

The best-known of Nerciat's erotic works, the novel follows several women and men on a series of humourous and increasingly spectacular erotic adventures described in flowery, elevated prose. The copper engravings depict some of the more imaginative configurations. Due to the scandalous content, the title-page is emblazoned with the pseudonym "Docteur Cazzoné, Membre extraordinaire de la joyeuse Faculté Phallo-coiro-pygo-glottonomique".

This octavo version in three volumes is the rarest printing of this work: on the leaf opposite the title-page, a note states: "Il n'a été tiré de cette Édition originale qu'un petit nombre d'Exemplaires de ce format, et très-peu sur papier vélin, avec figures avant la lettre". The variants on laid paper or in six volumes in duodecimo format, both from the same year, are more common. According to Rare Book Hub, only two other complete sets of this edition have been sold at auction in the last 50 years.

André-Robert Andréa de Nerciat (1739-1801) had a varied career: first as a soldier, and later as a librarian, novelist, spy and double agent. His travels in these capacities took him all through Europe, and in Bohemia he probably met his fellow libertine, Casanova. He died in Naples in 1801, as a double agent caught between French and anti-French forces.

A rare copy of an erotic classic from the pen of a true libertine adventurer.