SADE (Donatien-Alphonse François de). Justine,... Lot 618

SADE (Donatien-Alphonse François de). Justine, ou les Malheurs de la vertu. Hollande: chez les Libraires Associés [Paris: Girouard], 1791. -2 volumes in-8, 187 x 122 : 283 pp. ; (2 ff.), 191 pp. Red half-maroquin with small parchment corners, ornate smooth spine, speckled edges (early 19th century binding). Dutel A-593 - Pia 724-725. Extremely rare first edition of the Marquis de Sade's emblematic work, dedicated "À ma bonne amie" to his mistress Marie-Constance Quesnet. The first title published by the author, "this is the second version of Les infortunes de la Vertu, completed at the Bastille in 1787, and the embryonic state of La Nouvelle Justine" (Dutel). A novel of adventure and character, it was the first in France where the "noir genre" asserted itself so strongly. It appeared a year after Sade's release from Bastille prison, and was a great success at the time, as Louis-Sébastien Mercier reported that the novel was "spread out on boards" at the Palais-Royal. Readers' enthusiasm for the book can also be seen in the large number of clandestine reprints that circulated throughout Europe. A good copy in an early 19th-century binding. The type of iron used on the spine is almost identical to those used by Meslant and Courteval, among others. Copy incomplete of the frontispiece and the publisher's Avis, but it does contain the false title of the second volume. It has been enriched with a handwritten note from the period on a blank sheet mounted at the head of the first volume, stating: "Je suis Lagnaux mordu par le lou / Mais il viendra un jour / qu'il nait jamais venu / que je mordrez le lou quil ma mordu." Volume I: Title rebacked, small restoration and stains to the first three leaves of the same volume, tear missing but not affecting the text on leaf D2, some foxing and marginal wetness. Volume 2: discreet restoration to leaves G2 and G4.