240 - RESTIF DE LA BRETONNE, Nicolas-Edme. *Les Nouvelles Contemporaines, ou Histoires de quelques femmes du jour*.

RESTIF DE LA BRETONNE, Nicolas-Edme. *Les Nouvelles Contemporaines, ou Histoires de quelques femmes du jour*. Paris, Imprimerie de la Société Typographique, les Marchands de Nouveautés, Year 10 – 1802. In-12 (17 x 10 cm), Bradel-style cardboard binding, plain spine. Modern binding. Endpapers replaced. 214–215 pp. Foliate stains. Without the frontispiece portrait. First edition of the last book published during Restif de la Bretonne’s lifetime. This collection brings together 24 “free” short stories drawn from her works—notably *Monsieur Nicolas*—and reworked. “One of Restif’s unjustly despised or overlooked books. [...] Credit is due to Maurice Heine for being the first to highlight the significance of *Nouvelles Contemporaines*, which contains two of the “Revies” (Denise Page, Poline Dumas) that the author mentioned at the end of *Les Posthumes*, published a few weeks earlier [...]. Like the letters to the Fontaines, these *Nouvelles Contemporaines*—which, incidentally, would have been more accurately titled "Les dernières Contemporaines," are written in a style that is, in places, imbued with a poignant sensitivity that makes so many other 18th-century works seem dry by comparison" (Jean-Claude Courbin, *Retif et son oeuvre*, cat. Rousseau-Girard, 1961, no. 14669.—Rives Childs, no. XLVII). A fine copy bound in the 20th century. Two volumes in one.