[WOMEN'S HISTORY]. Les Imperatrices Romaines, ou Histoire de la Vie & des Intrigues secretes des Femmes des douze Cesars, de celles des Empereurs Romains, & des Princesses de leur Sang

Paris: Hourdel, 1744. New edition, corrected and enlarged. Very good. Three volumes, octavo (170 x 90 mm). Decorative head- and tailpieces throughout. (4), 455; vii, 444; (2), 408 pp., collated and complete (pages iii-vi of Preface of Volume II bound in error at end of Volume III). Slight wear to head and tail of spines and corners, 4 very small scrapes to covers on Volume I, tiny crack at top of hinges on Volume III, a few small indentations to lower cover on Volume III, manuscript notes on second blank endpaper in Volume I, small pale water-stain and very small closed tear to second blank endpaper in Volume III, tiny red mark to page edges in Volume III, just showing in margin of 5 pages, occasional brown spot, otherwise pages clean and bright. Tiny red mark to page edges in Volume III, just showing in margin of 5 pages, otherwise pages clean and bright. Bound in contemporary French red morocco, triple gilt ruled border to covers, gilt decorated raised bands to spine, gilt decoration in compartments, all edges gilt over marbling, marbled endpapers. SUMPTUOUS 18TH-CENTURY FRENCH RED MOROCCO ON A VERY EARLY HISTORY OF THE WIVES OF THE ROMAN EMPERORS, WITH PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO THE VICE, INTRIGUE, AND SCANDAL THAT WAS ATTRIBUTED TO THEM, FACT OR FICTION. THE WORK PROVED POPULAR AND THUS REMAINS OF CONTINUED INTEREST IN THE STUDY OF THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF WOMEN'S HISTORY. OUR COPY HAS A LONG AND DISTINGUISHED PROVENANCE.

"Les Imperatrices Romaines [...] begins with the four wives of Julius Caesar, and concludes with the nuptials of Constantine. Most of the anecdotes have some foundation in fact, but are amplified with circumstances feigned at the will of the author, who, if he wished to exhibit the enormities of vice in their greatest variety, and most unlimited extent, which may be presumed from his selection of such a subject, had little occasion to add the embellishments of fiction. This work was first published under the title Les Femmes des Douze Cesars." (Dunlop, History of Prose, vol. 2).

First published in one volume in 1718 under the title "Les femmes des douze Cesars," our edition is considerably expanded to encompass three volumes. The French historian Jacques Roergas de Serviez (1679-1727), was also the author of "Les Femmes Galantes de L'Antiquite" (1726).

It is not without interest that the Chevalier d'Eon de Beaumont, the first known man to live half his life in Europe (openly), owned a copy of the 1758 edition of the present work (see Gary Katas, Monsieur d'Eon is a Man: A Tale of Political Intrigue and Sexual Masquerade, p. 152: "Some Books on Women in d'Eon's Library"). D'Eon's copy, which appeared in the 1791 Christie's Sale (Part 6, lot 547), was one of forty to sixty books about women, mostly printed before 1777.

For further information about the historiography of women's history, see Miriam Elizabeth Burstein, "Unstoried in History: Early Histories of Women (1652-1902) in the Huntington Library Collections" (in: The Huntington Library Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 3/4 [2001], p. 472).

PROVENANCE: D.F. de Gelas de Voisins d'Ambrese (1686-1762), Comte de Lautrec, Marechal de France, , with his armorial bookplate in each volume. Subsequently in the library of M. Renard, and Ginette & Marcel Lavergne.