Two volumes, 4to, (340 x 252 mm). Printed on papier vélin, letterpress half-titles; engraved portrait after Vivien by Saint-Aubin; engraved title by Montulay dated 1773; 24 engraved chapter summaries with large ornamental tailpieces; and 72 engraved plates by Jean-Baptiste Tilliard after Charles Monnet, 66 in proofs before letters (the six plates illustrating the first two books were never issued in that state). Contemporary red morocco, covers with broad gilt borders of garlands, smooth spines elaborately decorated with green morocco mosaic onlays and gilt ornament, green silk endpapers within double gilt garland borders, edges gilt. A remarkably fresh and handsome binding, attributable to Bradel l’Aîné or Bisiaux.

Fénelon’s Télémaque, first published in 1699, was ostensibly a continuation of the Odyssey, recounting the travels of Ulysses’ son Telemachus under the guidance of Mentor—Minerva in disguise. Written by Fénelon while tutor to the Duc de Bourgogne, grandson and prospective heir of Louis XIV, it was also a treatise on the education of a ruler. Through Mentor, Fénelon condemns war, luxury, absolutism and oppressive taxation, advocating moderation, peace and government directed toward the welfare of the people. Contemporaries readily understood the work as an implicit criticism of Louis XIV’s reign.

Télémaque became one of the most widely read political and educational works of eighteenth-century Europe. Its ideal of the virtuous ruler influenced generations of royal education and its critique of luxury and arbitrary power appealed subsequently to Montesquieu, Rousseau and Enlightenment reformers. Its combination of classical antiquity, political morality and sensibility also helped shape the intellectual and aesthetic world from which Neoclassicism and Romanticism emerged.

The present edition is particularly important as an achievement of the Didot press. It was printed on fine wove paper from Annonay using Didot’s new Gros Romain Gras, cut by Jean-Baptiste Gérard to Pierre-François Didot’s designs. Contemporary observers praised precisely the beauty of its paper and typography. The Morgan Library confirms that the edition was produced under P.-F. Didot le Jeune using the new types of his foundry.

Its illustrations have an independent history. Charles Monnet completed his designs by 1771 and Tilliard engraved the spectacular sequence of 72 plates—three for each of Fénelon’s twenty-four books—by 1773. The illustrations were initially conceived and sold as a separate suite; the 1785 Didot edition finally united the text and images in the sumptuous format for which they had been intended. Gordon Ray selected it among his “100 outstanding French Illustrated Books, 1700–1914.”

The present copy is of particular rarity because 66 of its 72 illustrations are avant la lettre. This is the maximum possible: according to Cohen-de Ricci, the six plates belonging to the first two books were never printed before letters. The accompanying documentation records only five other complete sets in this state, including celebrated copies belonging to the Duc de Chartres, Henri Béraldi and Descamps-Scrive; only two of those were, like the present example, preserved in bindings strictly contemporary with publication. The existence and bibliographical significance of this special state are independently confirmed by Cohen and by another recorded copy containing the same 66 plates before letters.

The binding adds considerably to the distinction of the copy. Its red morocco, green mosaic decoration and elaborate gilt garlands exemplify the sophisticated decorative vocabulary of Parisian luxury binding immediately before the Revolution. The supplied provenance notes attribute it plausibly to Bradel l’Aîné or Bisiaux, though without documentary evidence I would retain the cautious formulation “attributable to” rather than assign it definitively to either binder.

A superb union of Enlightenment literature, French book illustration, typography and binding: the great Didot Télémaque with Monnet and Tilliard’s complete suite in the exceptionally rare avant-la-lettre state.

Cohen-de Ricci, Guide de l’amateur de livres à gravures du XVIIIe siècle, cols. 384–386; Gordon N. Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book, 1700–1914, no. 37; Jeanne Veyrin-Forrer, “Les premiers caractères de Pierre-François Didot,” in La lettre et le texte, 1987, pp. 139–153.