Description

ORIGINAL EDITION and POSTHUMOUS ORIGINAL EDITION works by Antoinette Des Houlières, a salonnière close to the précieuses and libertines.
The first volume does have the engraved medallion with the two herons that distinguishes the original from the many forgeries.

Her first poems attracted considerable attention: Madame Des Houlières was elected to the Académie des Ricovrati and the Académie d'Arles, making her the first French woman to be elected to the Académie. She was not admitted to the Académie française, which did not open its doors to women until 1980; one of her poems, however, was read at a session in 1690.

Fréron wrote of the woman whom his contemporaries nicknamed ".the tenth Muse":

Madame Deshoulières has dealt with almost every genre; I would like to say with equal success. At least we will agree that she has caught the naive of the epistle, the noble of the heroic, the finesse of the banter and the perfection of the idyll. She has no equal in this last genre.

Her daughter, Antoinette-Thèrese Des Houlières, known as Mademoiselle Des Houlières, also joined the Académie des Ricovrati. It was she who, in 1695, brought out the second part of Madame Des Houlières' works, adding her own poems and a curious tragedy, La Mort de Cochon, Monsieur le Mareschal de Vivone's dogin which all the characters are cats.

Handwritten bookplate in brown ink on Volume 1: "Ex-libris Mg. Jacquet".

attached: [MEUSNIER DE QUERLON]  - Anonymous letter addressed to M. Fréron on his XXVIth leaf. Small work in which we justify those of some modern authors, especially the Poems of the illustrious Madame Deshoulières.. Paris, Valleyre, 1752; 59 pp.

Beautiful collection of volumes in fine uniform bindings signed V. Krafft.