Very rare first French edition of a collection of amusing anecdotes, news, stories, bon mots and apophthegms, beautifully bound by Parisian bookbinder Antoine Bauzonnet (d. 1848). It belongs to the genre of "kluchtboeken" (jestbooks), which were very popular in Western Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries, but are now generally quite scarce. The present first edition is especially scarce, as Verberckmoes mentions in his article he is not aware of any existing copies. The USTC only records 3 copies in libraries worldwide, and we have not been able to trace any other copies in sales records of the past hundred years.
The present work is the first French translation of the Dutch Clucht boeck inhoudende vele recreative propoosten ende cluchten (1576), also printed by Hendrick Henricsz in Antwerp. This work is part of a series of editions of Dutch works that all had the word "Cluchtboeck" in their title. The first such work was Een nyeuwe clucht boeck (1554), which was also the first Dutch jestbook. It was largely based on Schimpff und Ernst by Johannes Pauli (ca. 1450-ca.1520), the famous German work on exempla (moral anecdotes). The Dutch version used 231 of Pauli's exempla, but significantly shortened them, and left out any religious anecdotes. The work further included 11 facetiae by the German humanist Heinrich Bebel (1472-1518), and two jokes from works by Erasmus.
The Cluchtboeck slowly changed over the course of the next two centuries, with anecdotes either left out or added in each subsequent edition. The 1576 edition was particularly remarkable, however, because it was the first that was more humorous than moralising. It took only the first 90 anecdotes from the 1554 edition, and added new ones from German, French, and Italian sources. It also included woodcut illustration with funny scenes to further highlight the humorous aspect of the work. The present work is the first French translation of this edition, complete with the woodcut illustrations. Two more editions followed in 1593 and 1596.
There is some confusion in the literature about whether it is not actually the second edition, because there is a work from 1555 with a very similar title (Recueil des plaisantes et facetieuses nouvelles recueillies de plusieurs auteurs). However, since this work was published 21 years before Henricsz' Clucht boeck, it cannot be a translation of it, and is therefore unlikely to be an earlier edition of the present work.
Antoine Tiron (Tyron; fl. 1563-1589) was an Antwerp schoolmaster, translator and corrector at several Antwerp printing houses, including that of Christoffel Plantin. He translated two books of Amadís le Gaule (one of which was published by Henricsz in 1577) and two well-known Neo-Latin tragedies: the Josephus of Macropedius, and Acolastus by Gnaphaeus.
With the bookplate of Edouard Moura (1863-1931, a poet from Bordeau and collector of French literature), and the leather bookplate of Les Eclusettes mounted on the front pastedown. Small dark brown spots on both boards, a bump mark on the front. The fore edge of the first four leaves is slightly frayed. Otherwise in good condition. Brunet, V, pp. 993-994; Pettegree & Walsby FB 49436; Pettegree & Walsby NB 29342; USTC 38688 (3 copies); WorldCat 1106709544, 83755073 (2 copies, also in USTC); cf. Schmidt, P. P., Zeventiende-eeuwse kluchtboeken uit de Nederlanden, pp. 13-17; Thomine, M. Faceties fin the siècle. La recueil dAntoine Tyron (1578) ... In: Perspectives facétieuses (Sympos., seminars ... on the European Renaissance, 117); Verberckmoes, J. Kluchtboeken in de Spaanse Nederlanden. In: De zeventiende eeuw 13, 1997, pp. 411-419; not in STCV.