RABELAIS (François). Lot n° 29

Les Œuvres, containing five books of the life, faicts and heroical sayings of Gargantua, and of his son Pantagruel, plus the Prognostication pantagrueline, with the oracle of the Dive Bacbuc, and the word of the Bottle. Lyon [Paris], Pierre Estiard [Jean Le Blanc], 1573. 3 parts in one volume in-16, havana morocco, three gilt fillets and one cold fillet, threaded spine, inner lace, smooth edges (Binding of the end of the 19th century). Very rare edition of Rabelais' novel, the third one published under the false address of Pierre Estiard in Lyon. The address is fictitious, since the Alsatian typographer Pierre Estiard died in 1564; but the identity of his real printer could be established, according to his typographical material, by Raphaël Cappellen: it is the Parisian Jean Le Blanc. The two editions previously published under the same address are no more from Lyon: the first was made in Rouen in 1571; the second was printed in Paris in 1573, like this one, but it comes from the presses of Olivier de Harsy. The general title has no engraved frame and the particular title of the Fifth Book has no address or date; it is identical to the title of Jean Martin's edition, 1584. The famous woodcut figure of the dive bouteille is found on p. 199 of this last part. The penultimate leaf is decorated on the front with a typographical fleuron and its back is blank. A well-bound copy, with the old manuscript bookplate on the title: Thomas, and on the first endpaper: Claude Serre avocat and the adage Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. Minor marginal spotting to a few leaves. Plan, n°103 - Rawles & Screech, n°69 - Raphaël Cappellen, " À l'enseigne du masque ", RHR, 2016, n°82-83, p. 84.