[Jean Anthelme BRILLAT-SAVARIN].

Physiology of taste, or Meditations of transcendental gastronomy; theoretical, historical, and current work, dedicated to Parisian gastronomes, by a professor, member of several literary and learned societies. Paris, A. Sautelet et Cie, 1826. 2 volumes in-8 of (1) f., XIV pp., pp. (5)-390 and 442 pp. : red half-sheepskin with corners, spines decorated with cold boxes, untrimmed, gilt heads (19th century binding). First edition : published anonymously, it was printed at 500 copies at the author's expense. First state copy: with the letter E of the word Bourse placed horizontally in the publisher's address on the title page of the first volume. Balzac immediately noted the flavor of the style of the now famous gastronomic breviary: "No prose writer has been able to give to the French sentence such a vigorous relief." And Roland Barthes underlined the "modernity" of the language. Under the cover of an "irony of science" the work reveals the springs of the pleasures of the mouth while affirming the enjoyment of a language, to the letter gourmand. Elegant copy with large margins. From the library of Théodore Lissignol, with bookplate. Originally from Geneva, Théodore Lissignol (1820-1886), a surveyor draughtsman, directed for a time the land registry in Geneva. He later served as an inspector for the Société générale pour le développement de l'industrie et du commerce in Paris. Small angular loss on pages 227-228 of the first volume, without loss of text. (Rahir, Bibliothèque de l'amateur, p. 346.- Pivot, La Bibliothèque idéale, 1988, p. 564: "This is the only classic of the table that we see classified with literature.")