The other day, I did something I hate: I bought a book in a very bad condition. Head cap gone with the jaw hanging loose, corners bumped and old water stains all throughout. And the price wasn’t even that low. Yet, when I received it, I was overexcited!
This worn book is actually an unknown “first” edition of Madame Deshoulières’ poems. I have developed a fascination for her works over the time. Her dark and melancholic poems were first published by Sebastien Cramoisy’s widow in 1688—a very neat edition. The book was pirated the same year with a fake title page. Then, Cramoisy’s widow printed a second edition in 1690. But on June, 9, 1691, Jean Villette bought her business during a public sale, and he immediately put out a new edition of Deshoulières’ works—well, not really. As demonstrated in an earlier article, the first Villette’s edition of 1694 is actually made up of unsold copies of the 1688 first edition. When the copy we’re talking about popped up on eBay.fr, I casually looked at it. The condition was definitely below my standards, but I noticed something unusual. The title page was all right: correct date, M.DC. LXXXVIII. (1688), correct printer (Mabre-Cramoisy’s widow), correct printer’s stamp with the two embracing storks fighting over a worm or a snake, correct title—yet, there was something odd about it. The letters are actually slightly different from the ones of my own first edition. The “Ë” of “POËSIES”, for instance, is very different. The letters forming the name “DESHOULIERE” weren’t properly aligned either. Then came the undeniable evidence: my edition specifies that Mabre-Cramoisy’s widow was the “Imprimeur du Roy” (with a “y” in “roy”) while the copy on eBay.fr read “Imprimeur du Roi”(with a “i”). What the... hell?
The bookseller only posted 4 pictures, so I had to do with that to pursue my early investigation. It was quite enough, anyway—indeed, on the last page of contents, there was an “ERRATA”, which is absent from my 1688 edition. It regards a song published “page huitième” (page 8). Pages 122-123 are also totally different. So this was another edition from 1688! And this time, it seemed legit, given the quality of the printing. So, that leads us to the crucial question: which is the true first edition? In order to try to answer it, I had to wait until I received my torn book. A few days later, I was able to confirm that this edition contains the same poems, in the exact same order, as the 1688 edition. The mistake that led the printer to add the ERRATA is absent from the other one—qu’êtes-vous devenus?, indeed.?
There was nothing to distinguish these two editions. But then I reached the very last sentence of the very last page: “Printed for the 1st time on January, 30, 1689.” What? I went for my other copy, which reads: “Printed for the 1st time on December, 30,1687.” Although the title page does read MDCLXXXVIII (1688), then this unknown edition is posterior. Then I spotted a copy of the second official Cramoisy’s widow’s edition of 1690. The title page is exactly the same than our 1688 strange edition, except for the date—M.DC.LXXXX. (1690). Yet, after a thorough comparison, there’s no doubt left: these are the same printings! So, we already had a “fake Villette edition” (1691), and a pirate edition, and now we also have a “fake second Cramoisy’s widow’s edition”—for some reason, it was printed at the wrong date. Although I was disappointed not to hold in my hands the “so far unknown true first edition of Deshoulières”, this subtlety was definitely worth the purchase of a very torn book.
T. Ehrengardt
