‎SWIFT, JONATHAN.‎
‎Voyages du capitaine Lemuel Gulliver, en divers pays eeoignez. 3 vols. - [SECOND FRENCH TRANSLATION OF GULLIER'S TRAVELS]‎

‎La Haye, Vander Poel, 1730. 8vo. Uniformly bound in three nice contemporary Cambridge-style mirror bindings with five raised bands and richly gilt spines. Scratches to boards with occassional loss of leather. Traces from small paper-label to upper compartment on spine on vol. 1. Dampstain to upper outer margin of first 15 ff. in vol 3. An overall nice and clean set. (8), 212 pp. + frontispiece and 4 plates (8), 220 pp. + 6 plates (32), 336 pp. + 2 plates. ‎

Reference : 61002

‎The rare second French translation of Gulliver’s Travels. The first translation was done by Desfontaines in 1727, this present translation was done anonymously and is much scarcer than the first 1727-edition. The original English edition was not, even by the well-educated English speaking, read in Franch:”Voltaire was one of the few people in eighteenth-century France to have had access to the English original. Discussing Gulliver’s Travels in a letter to M. Thieriot of February 1727, he calls Swift the English Rabelais indeed, he regarded him as superior to Rabelais, dubbing him the Rabelais “sans fatras”. What impressed him most in Gulliver’s Travels were the “strokes of imagination” and the lightness of style, “even if it were not in addition a satire on human kind.” Although Voltaire read the original, as yet unexpurgated version of Gulliver’s Travels, he did not accuse Swift of presenting too pessimistic a view of mankind. Nevertheless, he had some doubts about the success Swift’s works would enjoy in France. The French, he says, “will never have a very good understanding of the books of the ingenious Dr Swift” because the satire puts high demands on people’s knowledge of English culture, history, and politics, a knowledge not sufficiently available in France. One of Swift’s friends, the exiled Bishop Atterbury, shared these doubts on the grounds that the French had a different sense of humor from the English, and would therefore have difficulties understanding the significance of Gulliver’s Travels. A different view was held by Lady Bolingbroke, widow of the Marquis de Villette and second wife of the exiled Henry St. John, Viscount Bolingbroke. She was one of the most ardent admirers of Swift in France, and was convinced that her compatriots would profit from the translation which had been announced but was not yet published” (Just, The Reception of Gulliver’s Travels in Britain and Ireland, France, and Germany) Teerink, A Bibliography of the Writings in Prose and Verse of Jonathan Swift: 374 Amélie Derome Les traductions en langue française de Gulliver’s Travels de Jonathan Swift, no. 8‎