Manuscript. COUNT (LE) DE RHEINFELS. Anecdote... Lot 30

[Manuscript]. COUNT (LE) DE RHEINFELS. Anecdote historique du douzième siècle. s.l., 1807. In-4, contemporary speckled tan basane, smooth spine, red title-piece, gilt fillets, cold fillet edging the boards, gilt fillet at the edges, yellow edges (negligible rubbing, paper missing from first lining and endpapers). Manuscript almost certainly unpublished - at least under this title; we have not found a copy in any of the major French collections available online. Ink on fine laid paper, paginated from 1 to 193 including title, approx. 22 lines per page, on r° and v°; applied and very legible handwriting, very rare indentations or corrections. The volume consists of a preface and nineteen chapters. This story may well have been inspired by the romantic appearance of the ruins of Rheinfels Castle (overlooking the Rhine at Sankt Goar, in today's Rhineland-Palatinate). But this castle was not built until the mid-13th century, and the author situates his own "in the Neckar valley, a few leagues above the pretty town of Heidelberg". This is indeed historical fiction, which aims, according to the preface, at a form of edification through the heroic examples of the past, an objective which alone can, in the author's eyes, "excuse the frivolity of the genre of novels".