Description

Antique volume including 3 parts bound together 1 one volume, all being works by Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni . Published by Humblot in Paris during the year MDCCLXXXI (1781). Leather binding. Gilt ornaments on spine. Text in french. 582 pages in total (220+154+208), 17 x 10 x 3.5 cm. Acceptable/Good condition in general (serious inner binding issues, book does not open properly, needs to be handled with care to avoid deterioration of binding' s condition, worn cover where stains, scratches, rubbed/discolored/splotchy parts, few holes, fragile parts and from which small pieces are missing / from spine and boards' corners/edges, cracked corners/edges, foxing, yellow/brown stains, few creases, minor piece of paper missing from few leaves' corners/margin not affecting text, few leaves more-foxed-than-the-average ). Shipping costs via registered mail (tracking number provided): $25. Marie-Jeanne Riccoboni (25 October 1713 in Paris - 7 December 1792 in Paris), whose maiden name was Laboras de Mézières, was a French actress and novelist. In 1735, she married Antoine François Riccoboni, a comedian and dramatist, from whom she soon separated. She herself was an actress and had moderate success on the stage. Madame Riccoboni's work is among the most eminent examples of the "sensibility" novel; among the parallels cited in English literature are works by Laurence Sterne and Samuel Richardson. A still nearer parallel may be found in the work of Henry Mackenzie. Her works were also described as "letter novel" containing the negotiations of femininity, desire, and ambition. She has influenced other writers, including Pierre Choderlos de Laclos and his literary aesthetics. She obtained a small pension from the crown, but the Revolution deprived her of it, and she died in Paris on 7 December 1792 in great poverty. Riccoboni's first novel was Les Lettres de Mistris Fanni Butlerd (1757), which explored the functional exclusion of women from the public sphere. She is also noted for publishing Les Lettres de Juliette Catesby in 1759. Its translation by Frances Brooke into English the following year became an immediate success in England so that it went through six editions. Apart from authoring the works listed below, Riccoboni was the editor of a periodical, L'Abeille (1761), wrote a novel (1762) on the subject of Fielding's Amelia, and supplied in 1765 a continuation (but not the conclusion sometimes erroneously ascribed to her) of Marivaux's unfinished Marianne. Riccoboni also corresponded with Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, author of Les Liaisons Dangeureuses, as well as David Hume and the theater celebrity David Garrick (see J.C. Nicholls, ed. Madame Riccoboni’s letters to David Hume, David Garrick, and Sir Robert Liston : 1764-1783, Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 1976). Her letters to these personalities, including the diplomat Robert Liston, provided an account of life in France during the latter part of the eighteenth century.