L'Empire des Légumes. Memoires de Cucurbitus Ier...

1851. VARIN, Amédée. L'Empire des Légumes. Memoires de Cucurbitus Ier. Recueillis et mis en ordre par MM. Eugène Nus et Antony Meray. [4], 310 [2] pp., illustrated with an engraved frontispiece and 24 engraved plates, all coloured by a contemporary hand. 4to, 266 x 177 mm., bound in publisher's gilt stamped morocco backed cloth. Paris: Gabriel de Gonet, [1851]. First edition. A delicately hand-coloured copy of the "Droleries Végétales," a masterpiece of nineteenth-century French book-illustration in the style of Grandville. The twenty-five plates depict various kinds of vegetables, including carrots, radishes, onions, beans and lettuce, that begin to walk and talk; several of these anamorphic beings assume human traits, with hilarious results. Witness the asparagus and artichoke fighting ("For too long we have been put in the same sauce; it is finally time to put our foot down!") or the Parliamentary Carrot ("Three hours on the witness stand without cracking"). The fine plates by Amédée Varin (1818-1883) are brilliantly conceived and executed. The first edition, with points: "Un ministre..." on line 1 of the last page. Scattered foxing throughout, almost exclusively confined to text pages, and not detracting from the appeal of the book, copies of which are rare. Carteret III, 218. Brivois 134-5. Vicaire VI, 245. Sander 537. Not in Ray.