Schrifften. 2 vols.

With 2 engr. titles with a small etched vignette, 20 etched plates, and 39 etched vignettes in the text, all by Salomon Gessner. 191 pp.; 194 pp. 4to. Contemp. half calf, with 2 spine labels, spines gilt (repaired, slightly rubbed). Zurich, for the author, 1777-78. Only German quarto edition of the works of Salomon Gessner (1730-1788), only few copies printed. It is considered the finest of all editions, and one of the best illustrated works produced in Switzerland, comparable to the edition of Marguérite de Navarre's "Heptameron François" with the illustrations by Dunker and Freudenberger. Gessner himself was responsible for the illustrations, the ornaments and the printing. In this German version he included the pastoral play "Evander und Alcimna" and the poem "An den Wasserfall" which the French "Oeuvres" of 1777 did not contain; on the other hand, he omitted the "Contes" of Diderot which the French edition offered. There are four new illustrations as well, and three were left out. - A clean, wide-margined copy. - Leemann-van Elck, Salomon Gessner, p. 113 and no. 539; Maler und Dichter der Idylle Salomon Gessner, cat. (1980), no. 88; Goedeke IV, 1, 82, 11; Rümann 329; Lanckoronska/Oehler II, 164; Cohen/de Ricci 432; Lonchamp 329. Not in Meyer. ILLUSTRATED BOOKS (BEFORE 1900) ; HELVETICA: ALLGEMEIN ;