VOLTAIRE

VOLTAIRE Candide, or Optimism, translated from the German by Mr. Doctor Ralph Sl [London], sn [Nourse], 1759 In-12°. Full dark red morocco (E and A Maylander). Spine with 5 nerves decorated with cold wires. Double cold-stamped thread on the boards. Interior frames in the same morocco. Blue morocco lining with gilt roll and thread. Double gilt thread on the edges. T. gilt. Lined slipcase. Copy of the famous 59 x edition (mention stamped on the upper counterfoil) which has caused many problems to bibliographers trying to define the original among the 17 editions and forgeries published in 1759. For a time it was considered an original following the hypotheses put forward by Professor Wade, all of which were swept aside by Gagnetin in an article in the Bulletin du Bibliophile (1960, pp. 22 ff). But it was Morize who, as early as 1913, called it "59 x" and defined it as a forgery of an unbound copy of the original Cramer copy in Geneva. Indeed, it presents in 299 pages, like the original, the primitive text which will be corrected by the cartoons of pp. 31-2, 41-2 and 83-86 in the original. But it is especially p. 242 which contains the insulting passage on German poets that should be retained, a clumsiness towards Frederick II whom Voltaire was courting at the time (see Gagnetin, Bulletin du Bibliophile, 1952, pp. 177-80). Indeed, absent from all the editions of 1759, it will be restored only in 1761 by the Cramers. This leads Morize to conclude: "I believe, for my part, that this edition is otherwise valuable than the various counterfeits of 1759 and that it is truly - counterfeited, it is true - the first printing of Candide, a text, if I may say, ante-original." Faint scattered foxing, otherwise a very fine and precious copy impeccably bound by the Maylanders.