Oeuvres de Boileau Despreaux avec des Eclaircissemens Historiques, donnes par lui-meme, & rediges par M. Brossette; augmentees de plusieurs Pieces, tant de l'Auteur, qu'ayant rapport a ses Ouvrages; avec des Remarques & des Dissertations Critiques. Par M. de Saint-Marc.

Paris.: Libraires Associes., 1772.. Finely bound in uniform full brown polished calf, banded spines in six compartments with gilt floriated decoration, red and brown leather title labels in second and third compartments. Triple gilt fillets to edges of boards, gilt turn-ins. Marbled endpapers.. 5vols. 4to.. Illustrated with engraved title vignettes, culs-de-lampe, engraved frontispiece and hors-texte engraved plates. Engravings by Picart le Romain. [PROVENANCE: With the gilt stamp with the 'tughra' of the Ecole Imperiale Ottomane in centre of each front board. A.e.g. Ex-libris pastedowns of the Esmerian library and the Bibliotheque du Vte. Calvet-Rogniat. A fine large copy with each page mounted on larger sheets in a uniform binding with the gilt Imperial Ottoman stamp on each volume.Nicolas Boileau (1636-1711|) was a renowned 17th century French poet and critic. He was educated at the college of Beauvais and was at first destined to enter the Church, but soon abandoned the study of theology and, to please his father, prepared himself for the Bar. Though admitted as counsellor-at-law (December 1656), he never practised and his father having died leaving him enough to satisfy his wants, he devoted himself entirely to poetry. He was then twenty-one years old. Four years later he published his first satirical poem: "Adieux d'un poète à la ville de Paris"; immediately after this he published six others: "Les embarrass de Paris", "La satire à Molière", "Le repas ridicule", "La noblesse", and two others of minor importance. In these satires not only did Boileau parody and attack such writers as Cotin, Chapelain, and Le Voyer, but he also developed the practical capabilities of the French language.Above all, these satires inaugurate in France a systematic literary criticism for art's sake, where previously criticism had been nothing but the expression of envy or anger. In 1660 Boileau published the "Epistles", more serious in tone and also more polished in style. In 1674 appeared 'Le lutrin" which was lighter in tone. Boileau's masterpiece, however, and that of the didactic school in French, was without doubt "L'art poétique". This was also the first code of French versification. It comprises four books, the first and the last containing general precepts; the second treating of the pastoral, the elegy, the ode, the epigram, and the satire; and the third of tragic and epic poetry. His later publications were chiefly poems which he composed to defend himself against the numerous enemies his satires had raised up against him.These five volumes are one of the most beautiful of Boileau's complete editions, an exquisite printing of his entire oeuvre.