Dictionnaire de l'Academie Francoise, nouvelle edition
Nismes: chez Gaude Pere, Fils & Compagnie, 1777. 2 volumes, 4to, pp. [6], [iii]-vii, [1], 644; [4], 633, [1]; text in triple column; contemporary quarter calf over speckled paper-covered boards, gilt-paneled spines in 6 compartments, red and green morocco labels in 2; top spine panel of both volumes cracked, that on volume II with loss, bottom 2 panels on volume I cracked and with old neat repair; boards rubbed, extremities rubbed and worn; good and sound. The Academy was formed in 1635 at the request of Cardinal Richelieu "after the pattern of the Italian academies of the Renaissance. The Cardinal's purposes were to create something very serious, a piece of governmental machinery to legislate for language as other bodies legislated on matters economic or judicial... In 1638, the work on the dictionary was begun. There was little practical organization of the task and hardly any efficiency. The result was an exasperating slowness which invited numerous lampoons. One wag suggested that, the dictionary then being at the letter F, he would be delighted to live until they reached G. There was one time papers were seized by creditors and the work was practically paralyzed. Finally, in 1694, that is to say fifty-eight years after its inception, the book was off the press and was presented to the king with ceremony. As was to be expected, it was ultra-conservative, and based essentially on the canons of Malherbe, with even more restrictions on the admission of popular terms" (Holmes & Schutz, Hist. of the French Lang., pp. 86-87). Not a common edition: 7 in OCLC, only UCLA in the U.S.; this edition not in Vancil. Item #42973
Price: $425.00
