OEUVRES

Book Description

Londres [Paris], 1786. . 3 x 4 3/4. (8), 156 pages, plus 19 paper specimens with letterpress captions on each. Contemporary boards, calf spine, with title label "Piece Diverses." Extremity wear, joints weak, H. P. bookplate & small stamps on pastedowns. Small hole in outer margin of last 5 specimens; otherwise contents are fine. A good copy of this rare work. The first European book printed on paper made solely from vegetable matter without the use of any rag fiber. Text is printed on "papier d'écorce de tillleul" (linden-tree bark). Some copies were printed on marsh-mallow (papier de guimauve). The specimens are made from a range of material including thistles, nettles, hops, moss, reeds, green algae, hazel and spindle wood; and the barks of oak, poplar, osier, elm and willow trees. Each specimen is identified. Léorier de Lisle, made the text paper and the specimens at his Langlée mills. In his 3-page dedication to his patron, deLisle offers this book as proof that these materials are viable alternatives to increasingly rare linen and cotton rags. Although Jacob Schäffer experimented earlier "raw vegetable" paper, his contained a large admix of rags. Villette was a writer and politician, and a friend of Voltaire, several of whose letters are published here. Schlosser, Exhibition of Books on Papermaking pp. 9/10, notes that the number of samples varies from copy to copy up to 20; his copy had 16. See Hunter Papermaking The History and Technique‹ p. 327/8. Bound with: Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's La Chaumiere Indienne. [Paris, 1791]. xivii, (1), 130 pages.

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