Deluxe illustrated edition, luxuriously bound, of Fénelons popular didactic novel recounting the travels of Telemachus, son of Ulysses, and "Mentor" (Minerva disguised as his tutor). François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, mostly known as François Fénelon (1651-1715), was a French Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and writer. He was a regular visitor to the royal court at Versailles and for eight years tutor to Louis, Duke of Burgundy, King Louis XIVs grandson. In 1697, however, Fénelon was banished to his diocese, initially because of a religious dispute and later for writing the present work, Les aventures de Télémaque, fils d'Ulysse. Growing dissatisfaction with Louis XVI leading up to the French Revolution, made the book once again both popular and dangerous, though ironically the present edition and others were produced with patronage from members of the royal family.
The present luxurious edition - which stands in stark contrast to the author's original message of simplicity and relative equality - was produced under the direction of Pierre François Didot with the patronage of the future King Louis XVIII. It is the first edition to unite the text with the detailed illustrations drawn by the French painter Charles Monnet (or Monet, 1732-1808 or later) and engraved by Jean-Baptiste Tilliard (1740-1813). The first 6 plates, belonging to the first 2 books in volume 1 are numbered, signed and captioned, all other plates are "avant la lettre" without the textual information and are very rare.
The binding shows very minor signs of wear, mainly around the corners and the head and foot of the spine, minimal defects at the joints of the first few leaves in both volumes, very slight foxing and browning throughout. Otherwise in very good condition. Cohen & De Ricci, cols. 384-385; André Jammes, Les Didot (1998), p. 27; Jeanne Veyrin-Forrer, "Les caracteres de Pierre-François Didot (1783-1790)", in: Gutenberg-Jahrbuch, 1962, pp. 57-67, at pp. 60-64 & figs. 1-7, also in Veyrin-Forrer, La lettre et le texte (1987), pp. 139-157; for the plates by Tilliard after Monnet: Portalis, 1877, pp. 399-413.