[RÉTIF DE LA BRETONNE (Nicolas-Edme)]. LaDernière avanture d - Lot 16

[RÉTIF DE LA BRETONNE (Nicolas-Edme)]. LaDernière avanture d'un homme de quarantecin-ans [sic]. ÀGenève. Et se trouve à Paris chés Regnault, 1783. 2tomes in one volume in-12 with signatures and continuous pagination, 264-264 [265à528]pp. in green morocco, ribbed spine with cloisonné and fleurons, triple gilt fillet framing the covers, filleted edges, gilt inner lace, gilt edges over old marbling (Chambolle-Duru). First edition. Off-text copper-engraved illustration: 4 plates after Louis Binet by Étienne Giraud dit Giraud l'aîné and Jean-Louis-Charles Pauquet (Childs, n°XXV-1). Story of Rétif's 45-year-old affair with Sara, the 19-year-old daughter of his landlady Mme Leeman née Debée, from October 1780 to October 1782: "I composed it as the facts came in. That's what gives it the air of a diary" (Monsieur Nicolas). A great literary achievement, LaDernière aventure stands out for the lucidity of its analysis and the perfect progression of its narrative, from the painful retrospective glance at the beginning to the laconic denouement. It was the first time Rétif had evoked this important moment in his private life, but here he disguised the names and invented an ending other than the one that actually took place. He would take up this story again later, with the real names and a different conclusion, in Monsieur Nicolas and Mes Inscriptions. Sara Debée had literary ambitions: Rétif gives here, pp.138-172, a play she wrote, L'Amour la folie, ou le Rosier retrouvé. A very fine copy.