DE SAILLANS Gaspar Premier livre. Le contenu duquel, & des deux autres qui s’en suivront se trouvera cy derrière.

Baudrier, I, 229-230 ; Brunet, V, 31. Manque à Gay-Lemonnyer.

First edition, never reprinted.

The Premier Livre is also the only work printed by Jacques de La Planche listed by Baudrier.

Printed with care, all the pages are surrounded by typographical decoration.

Little is known about the life of Gaspar de Saillans other than that he was a ‘citoyen de Valance en Dauphiné’. The title of this edition bears the author’s coat of arms, surrounded by the motto ‘La Paix de Dieu en toute saison veuille loger en ceste maison’.

This work is divided into three parts, each with three chapters. The three parts of the first book contain curious correspondence between Gaspar de Saillans and the family of Louise Bourges, concerning his marriage to the latter and, after the marriage, between Louise de Bourges and her husband. Page 160 contains anagrams of Gaspar de Saillans [De Grans Pas Asally], Loyse de Bourges [Sobs Gloire Deue], Jehan Françoys de Saillans, his son [Soy Franc, Dellaise Haynne] his son.

Baudrier indicates that Gaspar de Saillans composed this First Book in honour of the birth of his son Françoys.

Of this extremely rare edition USTC locates only 4 institutional copies of which 3 in France and only 1 in the United States (Harvard, Houghton Library).

A very nice copy, slightly short in the outer margin.