Anonymous [Jean-Joseph Pechmeja] — Telephe En XII Livres

London and Paris, Chez Pissot, 1784. First Edition. Hardcover. Size: 12mo 7" - 7. An unlovely exterior, with rubbed and torn blue paper over boards with some loss thereof, rubbed and scuffed leather-backed, five raised bands to spine, gilt title over burgundy leather label in one compartment. Still, however, remarkably bright, clean, and unmarked interior but for previous owners' penciled markings at front endpapers and previous bookseller's ink-stamp inside rear flap and some brushed bleed-through atop third free endpaper from red-stained top (and other) edges. Text-block waffled, wavy, but again, remarkably clean and bright interior. Fine publisher's vignette at title page (a man and a pack-animal, headin' out), and 12 black-and-white engraved section headers, quite fine. His Wikipedia entry says that Jean-Joseph de Pechmeja (25 January 1741 - 8 May 1785) "was a French man of letters" and who collaborated with Abbe Raynal, author of the Histoire des deux Indes (1770), to write Abolitionist manifestos. This philosophical novel Telephe, being an apparent First Edition, comprises a prose poem in twelve "books." The French literary review, Mercure, praised this "philosophical romance" and noted that a reviewer, Grimm, compared it favorably to works of Telemachus in terms of "intellect, academicians, and academic women." In the novel, a young prince, Telephe, "enlightened by reason," Telephe, son of Hercules, has occasion to mediate a slave revolt among the Agathyrses and proposes Abolition. Queen Iphinoe falls in love with Telephe, abdicates her throne, and stumps for Abolition and equality via Reason and Philosophy. A scarce work in the trade, an important early work of poetry to inspire social change, with a fine interior belied by a rough exterior. [5], 2-264 pp.Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. . . . Good