<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">12mo. in 8s and 4s. ff. [6], pp. 389 (pagination error skipping from 264 to 269 but complete). Signatures: a6 A8 B4 C8 D4 E8 F4 G8 H4 I8 K4 L8 M4 N8 O4 P8 Q4 R8 S4 T8 V4 X8 Y4 Z8 Aa4 Bb8 Cc4 Dd8 Ee4 Ff8 Gg4 Hh8 Ii4 Kk1. Contemporary mottled calf. Spine gold-tooled with fleurons, gold-stamped lettering piece laid to spine, board edges gold ruled, marbled end papers, red edges. Woodcut headpieces, initials and tailpieces. With 2 contemporary inscriptions of female owners (“japartient a Mlle dela chevallerie” on front flyleaf and on “Mlle Casamajor” at p. 1).</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">Rare first edition of this fraudulent 18th-century ‘translation’ of a (non-existent) Latin epic poem about Joan of Arc’s heroism at the siege of Orléans, printed in Paris by the widow Delatour (née Anne-Marie Mérigot, d. 1767) who succeeded her husband, Louis-Denis, after his death in 1736. Mérigot’s shop alone is named at the end of the privilege, but on the title page it shares billing with the establishments of François-Gabriel Mérigot and Louis-François Prault.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">No author or translator is named in the pages of the work – only later was it attributed to Jean de Roussy (1705-77) – but its supposed genesis is given in the “Avis du traducteur,” where the translator claims that an old man (“Un Homme de Lettres fort âgé”) long ago showed him his manuscript of a neo-Latin epic poem about Joan of Arc’s actions at the siege and liberation of Orléans (1428-29) during the Hundred Year’s War. It took decades for the translator (“Jeune-homme”) to convince the old man that his work should be rendered French. The ‘translator’ defends his decision to present the tale in French prose by saying that it both was required to smooth over the infelicities and lacunae of the Latin original and that French history should, after all, be in French. The conceit is reinforced by the book’s approbation (signed by Danchet, 2 January 1738), which buttresses the fabrication by alluding to a supposed Latin original. To cement the fraud, the ‘translator’ appended to the work 5 pages in parallel columns showing ‘original’ Latin verse and its French translation. Contemporaries were not long fooled by the ruse, and today we must imagine that commercial considerations were behind the decision to link the authority of Latin epic poetry to the accessibility of the vernacular roman. The first line of Aurélia ou Orléans délivré, “Je chante Orleans délivré de l’Armée Angloise qui tenoit assiegé,” easily recalls the Aeneid of Vergil and the Illiad of Homer.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11.5pt;">See J.M. Quérard, La France litteraire, ou Dictionnaire bibliographique des savants, historiens et gens de lettres de la France ainsi que des littérateurs étrangers qui ont écrit en français, plus particulièrement pendant les XVIIIe et XIXe siècles. Paris, 1833, p. 246; Catalogue des livres et documents imprimés du fonds lorrain de la bibliothèque municipale de Nancy. Nancy, 1898, nr. 3532; Le Journal des Sçavans, 1738, 11, pp. 660-75; J. Barthélemy de Beauregard, Histoire de Jeanne d’Arc, d’après les chroniques contemporaines. Paris, 1847, p. 485; J. Le Long and C. M. Fevret de Fontette, Bibliothèque historique de la France, Paris, 1769, II, p. 182; .-M. Quérard, Les supercheries littéraires dévoilées; seconde édition, considérablement augmentée, publiée par MM. Gustave Brunet et Pierre Jannet. Paris, 1869, I, p. 1.</span><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:0.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:normal;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size:11.5pt;font-family:Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://catalyst.library.jhu.edu/permalink/01JHU_INST/1lu78g9/alma991008158469707861" rel="nofollow">Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.</a></span></span></p>