La religion du Médecin

N.p., 1668. Front hinge partly split, but sound. 12mo (130 x 74 mm). Engraved title. [24], 360 pages. Contemporary vellum. FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH of the famous and influential treatise, Browne's 'Relgio medici,' and the only edition in French until the 20th century. "By turns credulous and skeptical, Sir Thomas Browne is one of the most unusual of the great writers of the seventeenth century... The combination of detachment from the world with fascination with its smallest objects, the style, and the mind which both style and contents reveal, has absorbed the interest of readers of all kinds ever since its first appearance" (Printing and the Mind of Man). The work first appeared in two unauthorized editions in English in 1642.

The present edition was translated from Dutch of 1665: "sometimes attributed to Nicolas Le Févre. According to Willems [no. 1784] printed by Blaeu in Amsterdam. La Haye has also been suggested as a place of imprint" (Krivatsky 1852). Keynes 71.