Literature & Linguistics

[LACLOS, Pierre Ambroise François Choderlos de]. Les liaisons dangereuses, ou lettres recueilles dans une société, & publiées pour l'instruction de quelques autres. Par M. C..... De L.
Amsterdam; Paris, Durand Neveu, 1782. 4 volumes bound as 2. 12mo. Contemporary sprinkled calf, blind-tooled double fillet frame on boards, sewn on 5 supports, gold-tooled spine with gold-tooled brown leather labels and red sprinkled edges. 248; 240; 230; 256 pp. Full description

LAFARGUE, Étienne de. Poëme sur l'éducation, dédié à M. Le Comte Charles, fils de M. Le Duc de Luynes.
Paris, Guillot, Librairie de Monsieur, 1788. Small 8vo. With full-page engraved plate showing a young boy studying at home with his private tutor and his father watching, 4 finely engraved headings for each stanza of the educational poem, and several charming woodcut tail-pieces to the added fables and miscellaneous poetry. Contemporary gold-tooled green morocco. [4], XVIII, 135, [9] pp. Full description

LA FEUILLE, Daniel de. Essay d'un dictionnaire contenant la connoissance du monde, des sciences universelles, et particulierement celle des medailles, des passions, des moeurs, des vertus et des vices, &c. Representé par des figures hyerogliphiques, expliquées en prose & en vers.
Wesel, Jacobus van Wesel, 1700. 4to. With engraved frontispiece and 48 engraved plates (incl. 2 double-page). Contemporary half calf, gold-tooled spine. [8], 144, [8] pp. Full description

[LA FONTAINE, Jean de]. La Fontaine en estampes, ou nouvelle édition des fables, plus complète que les précédentes; précédée de la vie de l'auteur, extraite du nouvel ouvrage de M. Walckenaer.
Paris, Auguste Nepveu, 1821. 4to. With an engraving on the title-page (Aesop talking with the animals before a bust of La Fontaine) and 110 half-page engravings illustrating the fables. Contemporary half brown sheepskin, sewn on recessed supports, purple decorated paper sides, gold-tooled spine with title and author in gold, gilt edges, silk endpapers and paste-downs. "XXIV" [= XXVIII, pp. XXV-XXVI and XXVII-XXVIII are misbound), 462 pp. Full description

LA FONTAINE, Jean de. Contes et nouvelles en vers.
Amsterdam [= Paris], [Joseph-Gérard Barbou], 1762. 2 volumes. 8vo. With engraved portraits of La Fontaine and Eisen and 80 engraved plates after drawings by Eisen and engraved by Aliamet, Baquoy, Choffard, Delafosse, Flipart, Lemire, Leveau, De Longueil and Ouvrier, and 4 vignettes and 53 head- and tailpieces by Pierre-Philip Choffard. An engraving of Le calendrier des vieillards in its découvert state is loosely inserted in volume 1. Contemporary gold-tooled red morocco, gilt edges. XIV, [2], 268, [2], 16; VIII, [2], 306, [8], [2 blank] pp. Full description

LAFUENTE Y ALCANTARA, Emilio. Inscripciones Arabes de Granada, precedidas de una reseña histórica y de la genealogía detallada de los reyes Alahmares.
Madrid, Imprenta Nacional, 1859 (issued 1860). 4to. With a folding family tree.
Near contemporary gold-tooled vellum with spine title, endpapers with a floral pattern. With the original publishers 1860 front wrapper bound in. XIII, [1], 15-242, [2] pp. Full description

[LA HAYE, Jean de]. Peristromata Turcica, sive dissertatio emblematica, praesentem Europae statum ingeniosis coloribus repraesentans.
With:
(2) [HARSDÖRFFER, Georg Philipp]. Germania deplorata, sive relatio, qua pragmatica momenta belli pacisque expenduntur.
(3) [MILAG, Martin]. Aulaea Romana, contra Peristromata Turcica expansa: sive dissertatio emblematica, concordiae Christianae omen repraesentans.
(4) [Anonymous French critic of Cardinal RICHELIEU]. Gallia deplorata, sive relatio, de luctuoso bello, quod rex Christianissimus contra vicinos populos molitur.
[Nürnberg, Wolfgang Endter] (ad 1 with a false colophon: Paris, Toussaint du Bray), [each title-page with a chronogram:] 1641 (ads 1-2, 4) & 1642 (ad 3). 4 editions published together in 1 volume. 4to. With 4 letterpress title-pages in red and black, each with the date in a chronogram, 2 engraved title-plates plus 12 full-page engraved emblematic illustrations, all on integral leaves, each with a small plate nested in a larger plate (7 in the Peristromata with a varying rectangular central plate in dark blue or black and the same outer plate of a Persian carpet in orange; 7 in the Gallia with a varying oval central plate and the same outer plate representing peace with the palm tree in a landscape device of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft and a border representing war with military attributes). Further with 5 woodcut head- and tailpieces (plus 8 repeats), 21 "woodcut" decorated initials (5 series, at least some actually metal castings made from woodcuts) plus 8 repeats, and cast vine-leaf ornaments, acorns and other fleurons. Set in roman and italic types with incidental Greek and Hebrew. Light brown calf (ca. 1820?) by Charles Murton (ca. 1795?-ca. 1860?) in London, with his stamp on the front paste-down, sewn on 5 cords, gold-tooled spine with black morocco label, gold thick-thin fillets on boards, gold-tooled board edges, blind-tooled turn-ins, curl-marbled endpapers (white, red, blue, yellow and blue-green in that order), and an orange silk ribbon marker. 46, [1], [1 blank]; [3], [1 blank], 34; 64; 51, [1 blank] pp. Full description

LA MOTTE, Antoine Houdar de. Fables nouvelles, dédiées au Roy. Avec un discours sur la fable.
Paris, Gregoire Dupuis, 1719. 4to. With engraved allegorical frontispiece by N. Tardieu after Charles Coypel, engraved vignette on title-page by C. Simeneau after N. Vleughels and 100 engraved illustrations to the fables by and after Claude Gillot, Charles Antoine Coypel, Jean Ranc, Bernard Picart, Jean Baptiste Massé, etc. Contemporary mottled calf, gold-tooled spine. XLII, [4], 358, [2] pp. Full description

LANGLÈS, Louis Mathieu. [6 autograph letters, signed, mostly to Antoine-Jean de Saint-Martin].
[Paris], 7 April [1820?]-13 January 1824. 8vo & 4to. Signed autograph letters in brown ink on laid paper, the 1824 letter on a letterpress "Bibliothèque du Roi" letterhead with the royal arms. 7 letters, each written on 1 side of a single leaf. Full description

LANGUEN, Jacques. Petit manuel Russe à l'usage des étrangers. Ouvrage propre à faciliter l'intelligence de la langue russe; dans leguel les mots russes sont réprésentés avec leur prononciation figurée en caractèrs français et prosodiée.
St. Petersburg, Senat for N. Worobieuffl, 1819. 8vo. Bound in a later green buckram with gilt spine; with the original orange painted wrappers preserved. [4], 75, [1 blank] pp. Full description