BOUCHET, Jean

UNRECORDED NEW AND EXPANDED EDITION

BOUCHET, Jean Les annales Dacquitaine faictz et gestes en sommaire des roys de France et Dangleterre, pays de Naples et de Milan. Revues et corrigees par lacteur ... et de nouvel iusques en lan Mil cinq cens xxxvii

Paris, Jehan André, 1537

£4,250.00

Folio. ff. [10] CXCIX. Lettre bâtarde, t-p in red and black, white on black floriated initials plus one large criblé and one grotesque. Ms ex-libris on upper margin of t-p in English hand “ a Joanne Prentt”, recording the book’s purchase in Paris in 1539 and of “Nicolai Von Bodeck Dantzigi Anno 1652”in lower margin, C19 armorial bookplate of a Marquis on pastedown. A very good cleant copy in C17 mottled calf, upper joint cracked at head. Spine gilt in compartments, red morocco lettering piece,edges speckled red, old Quaritch collation note in pencil at end.

Unrecorded new and expanded edition of Jean Bouchet’s most important work continued up to 1537, though similar printings can be found by Richard du Hamel, Jehan Macé, Sergent Pierre, Guilaume le Bret and A Girault.
Jean Bouchet (1476-1555(?)) was a public prosecutor at Poitiers and writer of the «Grand rhétoriqueurs », a literary movement supported by Louis XII’s court. Jean d’Auton, abbé d’Angle and Louis XII’s historiographer and poet, taught him poetry and instilled in him the taste for history. Bouchet was close to the important La Tremoille family and became a member of Anne of Brittany’s court at the request of the Duchess de la Tremoille, Gabrielle of Bourbon. However he is really remembered now more as a historian than as a poet. After eight years of research in all Poitou and having recorded Louis II La Tremoille’s recollections of the reigns of Charles VIII, Louis XII and Francois the First, he published the first version of his “Annales d’Acquitaine”, the first historical work about a French province. It is a valuable text for the history of Aquitaine and of France but for English history as well, with their long involvement with the Duchy of Guyenne. The author continued his work until the end of his long life in 1557, the last corrected edition was published the day after his death.
It seems that booksellers often changed the t-p but the colophon, collation and the printing date stayed/are the same. In these editions the last leaf is often cancelled, maybe to conceal the device of another printer. The present edition was unauthorized and the addition up to 1537 were not by Bouchet, who warned his readers against them in the fourth edition of 1545. “ « Au commancement de l’an mil cinq cent trente cinq, les présentes Annales d’Aquitaine furent imprimées a Poictiers pour la troysicsme foys. Depuis et l’an mil cinq cents quarante, aultre imprimeur que le mien, les a imprimées a Paris pour la quatriesme fois ; et continue mon histoire sans moy, iusques audict an mil cinq cents quarante en mon nom : qui est crime de faulx, me supposant contre vérité ce qu’ils ont continue estre de mon ouurage, combien que ce soyent choses triuiales et non sentans l’histoire. »
Nicklas Von Bodeck was probably the mayor of Dantzig between (1664-1675) and author of “Sehnliche Klage des Nicolai von Bodeck iiber dessen Tochter Barbara. Danzig 1653 ”and “Auf das Ehrenfest des Nicolaus von Bodeck und Coustantia Giesen. Danzig 1648”.
Sadly we have not located John Prentt.

For eds.by other printers see: BNF, Index Aureliensis, V,; Brunet, Supp. I, 161.
Stock Number: L1487 Categories: , , ,

In stock