CHODERLOS DE LACLOS Piere-Ambroise-François Les Liaisons dangereuses, ou Lettres recueillies dans une société, & publiées pour l’instruction de quelques autres.

Ducup de Saint-Paul, n°8; Max Brun, Étude des éditions des Liaisons dangereuses portant le millésime 1782, édition X ; En français dans le texte, 174.

Rare first 8vo edition published the same year as the original, as described by Brun, with the same error in numbering the letter XIX, marked XXI. According to Brun, Ducup’s reasoning is flawed.

When Les Liaisons dangereuses appeared in 1782, it was an immediate success, tinged with scandal, so much so that the 2000 copies of the original edition quickly sold out. Other editions, particularly pirate editions, were produced to satisfy curious readers.

This epistolary novel, which touched on libertinism as well as sociology and the art of writing, not only fascinated Choderlos de Laclos’s contemporaries, but also had a lasting impact on literature. He is quoted in Proust’s novel La Prisonnière:  « Si je vais avec vous à Versailles, comme nous avons convenu, je vous montrerai le portrait de l’honnête homme par excellence, du meilleur des maris, Choderlos de Laclos, qui a écrit le plus effroyablement pervers des livres » (Marcel Proust, La Prisonnière, 1923).

Top of page 139 of first volume faded. Page 103 misquoted 203, page 170 misquoted 171, page 174 misquoted 114, page 205 misquoted 305, page 208 misquoted 308 in volume II.

Corners dulled. A fine copy of an uncommon edition.