Three Important Works From the "Querelle des Femmes" Period in France
Alphabet de l’imperfection et Malice des Femmes. De mil hommes i'en ay Trouve un bon & de toutes les femmes pas une, Dedie a la plus mauvaise de monde.
Paris: Chez Jean Petit-Pas, 1617.
Full Description:
[OLIVIER, Jacques., pseud. TROUSSET, Alexis] Alphabet de l’imperfection et Malice des Femmes. De mil hommes i'en ay Trouve un bon & de toutes les femmes pas une, Dedie a la plus mauvaise de monde. Paris: Chez Jean Petit-Pas, 1617.
First Edition of Trousset's famous misogynistic tract, "Alphabet of imperfection and malice of women." an alphabetically ordered descriptions of female vices, beginning with the letter ‘A’ (‘a very avaricious animal’). Twelvemo (5 5/8 x 3 3/16 inches; 142 x 80 mm). 360, [19, table], [1, printer's remark] pp. With engraved headpieces and historiated initials. Title-page with woodcut vignette of Marguerite de Valois, Queen of France from 1589 to 1599 and wife of Henry IV, to whom the work is dedicated ("la plus mauvaise du monde", "the worst creature in the world"). We could find no first edition copies of any of these three titles on Rare Book Hub.
[Together with]:
[OLIVIER, Jacques., pseud. TROUSSET, Alexis]. Response aux impertinences de l’aposté capitaine Vigouroux, sur la Defense des femmes, par Jacques Olivier, licencier aux Loix et en Droict Canon, auteur de l’Alphabet... Paris: Chez Jean Petit-Pas, 1617.
First Edition of Trousset's response to a refutation of his work by Le Sieur Vigoureux. Twelvemo (5 5/8 x 3 3/16 inches; 142 x 80 mm). 251, [1, blank], [9, table], [1, blank, [1, printer's remark], [1, blank] pp. With engraved headpieces and historiated initials. Title-page with woodcut vignette printer's device.
[And]
[DE LA BRUYERE, Jean]. Réplique à l’Antimalice ou Défense des femmes du sieur Vigoureux... ou sont reiettees les favtes qu'on attribue aux hommes a l'ignorance de l'autheur qui ne les a peu prouver. Par le Sieur de La Bruyère, gentil-homme bearnois. Paris: Chez Jean Petit-Pas, 1617.
First Edition of Le Bruyere's response to the same work by Le Sieur Vigoureux. Twelvemo (5 5/8 x 3 3/16 inches; 142 x 80 mm). 144, 175-317, [1, blank] pp. With leaf H5 as a cancel. Pagination skips, but collates complete. With engraved headpieces and historiated initials. Title-page with woodcut vignette printer's device.
Three volumes uniformly bound in full 18th-century (?) vellum. Front boards ruled in gilt. Each board with a gilt central device. Board edges tooled in gilt. Gilt dentelles. Spines stamped in gilt. Each spine with two spine labels, red and black morocco, lettered in gilt. All edges gilt. Marbled endpapers. Some rubbing to boards and some light soiling to vellum. Previous owner's bookplate on front pastedown of each volume. Overall a very good, and attractive set.
"The French phrase querelle des femmes, meaning 'the woman question,' refers to a literary debate about the nature and status of women. This debate began around 1500 and continued beyond the end of the Renaissance." (Encyclopedia dot com).
"At the heart of the 'querelle des femmes' lay the fundamental mistrust of women, and their relegation to a subsidiary role in all respect... Some members of the clergy took a more liberal view, but the most violent attacks on women, expressing real hatred and fear, were written by priests or members of religious order... One of the most popular anti-feminist works was Jacques Olivier's 'Alphabet de l'imperfection et malice des femmes,' published in Paris in 1617 and reprinted at least eighteen times by 1650, which provoked many refutations and kept the 'Querelle femmes' alive for several decades. It was still being reprinted in 1683, when two editions appeared in Rouen. All editions except the first, which is anonymous, give the author as 'Jacques Olivier, licencier aux Loix et en droit canon', but according to Maclean he was almost certainly a Franciscan monk, Alexis Trousset, who had published other works at around the same time. His book is a vicious attack on what he perceived as the coquetry, vanity, hypocrisy and inconstancy of the female sex, subscribing to the view that women are sexually more voracious than men and using this prejudice to undermine altogether their moral and intellectual status." (Women and Theatre in Seventeenth- century France. Elizabeth Rosalind Grist)
When author Le Sieur Vigoureux "argued that the faults attributed to women occurred just as frequently among men, Trousset replied (within months of publishing the original Alphabet ) by contrasting the alleged ignorance of his critic with the unimpeachable authorities on which he relied."
Trousset’s Alphabet's first refutation was "entitled La defense des femmes, contre l’alphabet de leur pretendue malice et imperfection... Its author describes himself as ‘le sieur Vigoureux, capitaine du chasteau de Brye-Comte-Robert’... His tract, which rests on the tenet ‘les femmes sont telles que les hommes les rendent’, (women are what men make them) provokes two replies, one from Trousset "Resonse aux impertinencer de l’aposte' capitaine Vigoureux, sur la defence des femmes" and le sieur de La Bruyere’s "Replique a l’antimalice ou defiance des femme du sieur Vigoureux", both from the same printer (Jean Petit-Pas), and both bearing the same date of Privilege, 27 October 1617.
Brunet, IV-182
HBS 69455.
$4,500.
Price: $4,500.00
Item #69455