Les Comptes du Monde adventureux par A.D.S.D.

8vo (169x104 mm). [11], 245, [1] leaves. Collation: ã8 ē4 A-Hh8. Lacking the blank leaves ē4, Hh7 and Hh8. Groulleau's device on title page. Woodcut initials. Colophon on l. Hh5r, Privilège du Roi on ll. Hh5v-6v. Roman and italic types. 19th-century gilt hazelnut calf, spine in compartments with lettering piece, gilt edges, marbled endleaves, blue silk bookmark (part of the spine and hinges skillfully repaired). On the front flyleaf bookplate with the monogram “AMB”, on the title page barely readable ownership entry “Le marquis De P[…]” and library stamp “Ex bibliotheca J. Richard M.D.” (repeated on l. A1r). Contemporary manuscript notes on ll. Q2r and Q6r in a French hand. Worm tracks repaired on the lower blank margin of most of the volume only occasionally minimally affecting the text, title page slightly soiled, some occasional light browning, all in all a good copy.
 
Extremely rare first edition of this collection of fifty-four moralizing stories, often rather coarse and spicy, nevertheless dedicated “Aux sages et vertueuses Dames de France”. The work is traditionally attributed to Antoine de Saint-Denis, a priest from the diocese of Mans, who seems to have been in close relationship with Marguerite de Navarre. “Par ses tendances come par sa forme littéraire, ce recueil appartient bien au petit cercle des contes de la reine de Navarre, et la personalité d'Antoine de Saint-Denis [curé de Champfleury] s'y encadre sans difficulté […] Il faut reconnaître que, en effet, si Marguerite d'Angoulême étendit largement sa protection sur le monde entier des lettres et des arts, elle se fit tout près d'elle un cenacle choisi de poëtes et de conteurs, et que sa personalité fut, pour ceux-ci, una cause vivante démulation autant qu'un centre d'attraction […] Par ces points de contact fréquents entre le livre de la reine de Navarre et le recueil de Comptes du monde adventureux se trouve corroborée l'opinion que j'ai déjà émise au sujet de la priorité des ces Comptes, priorité d'allieurs publiquement affirmée par les amis de l'auteur au moment de l'impression du recueil in 1555, et qui ne souleva de la part des contemporaines aucune réclamation” (F. Frank, Notice, in: “Les comptes du monde adventureux”, Paris, 1878, pp. XIV, XXIV and CXXVII; see also V.-L. Saulnier, Martin Pontus et Marguerite de Navarre, la Réforme lyonaise et les sources de l'Héptameron, in: “Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance”, XXI, 1959, pp. 577-594).
At the beginning of each story the author gives his short general moral lesson and at the end he addresses specifically to women to tell them what lesson they have to draw from the story. As in Boccaccio's Decameron, the stories are told within a narrative frame, which is in itself a short story. The author is traveling from Provence to Savoy through the Dauphiné. Along the way he meets a gentleman who is accompanying his recovering wife to a thermal center. He joins them and their group, and during the journey - on horseback, during and after meals - they tell each others short stories to entertain themselves.
Investigations about the sources of the stories were made by G.-A. Pérouse in his Nouvelles françaises du 16me siècle (Genève, 1977, pp. 139-155). Thus the main source of the stories is Masuccio Salernitano (c. 1410-1475), as at least thirty stories are drawn from him. Some single stories are adaptations from the Pecorone of Giovanni Fiorentino (fl. mid 14th cent.), from Heinrich Bebel (1472-1518), from Matteo Bandello (1485-1561) (cf. V.-L. Saulnier, Sur une nouvelle de Bandello et l'un des Comptes du Monde adventureux, in: “Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance”, XXIII, 1961, pp. 347-350), from Le petit Jehan de Saintré by Antoine de La Sale (c. 1388-1461) (cf. G.-A. Pérouse, Les Comptes du Monde adventureux et le roman de Jehan de Saintré, in: “Bibliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance”, XXX, 1968, pp. 457-469), and from the Cent Nouvelles nouvelles (c. 1450s). The remaining stories, however, are original