‎"SCARRON, PAUL. ‎
‎Le roman comique de Mr. Scarron. 3 parts (+) Les Nouvelles oeuvres Tragi-comiques. - [""ALMOST THE FIRST FRENCH NOVEL""]‎

‎Amsterdam, Wetstein, 1712. 8vo. In contemporary full calf with four raised bands and with embossed title and ornamentation to spine. Small paper-label pasted on to top of spine. Wear to extremities, head of spine chipped. Internally with a few dampstains. 436, (2), 180 pp. + 2 frontispiece. ‎

Reference : 61807

‎Uncommon later edition of Scarron’s highly popular masterpiece which recounts the adventures of a troupe of provincial travelling actors, weaving comic anecdotes of their romantic exploits and the central love story between Leandre and his beloved Angelique into a rich and realistic narrative depicting rural France. It was first published in 1651. ""Scarron's work is very abundant and very unequal. ... the Roman comique (1651–1657) is a work the merit of which is denied by no competent judge. Unfinished, and a little desultory, this history of a troop of strolling actors is almost the first French novel, in point of date, which shows real power of painting manners and character, and is singularly vivid. It is in the style of the Spanish picaresque romance, and furnished Théophile Gautier with the idea and with some of the details of his Capitaine Fracasse. Scarron also wrote some shorter novels: La Précaution inutile, which inspired Sedaine's Gageure imprévue" Les Hypocrites, to which Tartuffe owes something, and others. Of his plays Jodelet (1645) and Don Japhet d'Arménie (1653) are the best.” (Encyclopedia Britannica) Paul Scarron (1610 – 1660) was a French poet, dramatist, and novelist, born in Paris. Scarron was the first husband of Françoise d'Aubigné, who later became Madame de Maintenon and secretly married King Louis XIV of France.‎