ONE OF THE ABSOLUTE MASTERPIECES OF FRENCH LITERATURE, FIRST EDITION AND IN A SPLENDID AMATEUR BINDING.

Original edition of one of the absolute masterpieces of French literature, which has entered the collective imagination of the world also thanks to its many film adaptations: just remember in 1988 Dangerous Liaisons by Stephen Frears (1988), with a stellar cast composed of Glenn Close, John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer, Uma Thurman and Keanu Reeves; and then Valmont by Milo Forman, with Colin Firth and Annette Bening, winner of the César Award for scenography and costumes. «Les Liaisons Dangereuses» saw the light for the first time in the spring of 1782, more precisely between 7 and 15 April (Brun, «Bibliographie», p. 41).

Epistolary novel, written by the semi-unknown artillery officer Pierre Ambroise Françoise Choderlos de Laclos, staged the murky and libertine events of the Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil: «l audacious des Liaisons dangereuses ne consistet-elle ni dans la débauche facile au langage cru, ni dans la perversité au premier degré ou la jouissance of doing evil proper to Sade, more in the art of telling or plutôt de l'écrire pour un admiratif conaisseur et un peu vexé, placé en position de voyeur comme lecteur» («En français dans le texte, n. 174)». From the moment it was first published in the magazine, the success was immediate and overwhelming: on 16 March 1782 Choderlos de Laclos signed a contract with the publisher Durand Neveu for the printing of 2000 copies of the work, and already on 21 April the author agreed to the publication of a second edition; by the end of the year there were 16 different editions, some authorised, others, for the most part, counterfeits (Brun, «Bibliographie», p. 5; Talvart - Place, II, pp. 290-300). Today it is possible to orient oneself in this complex labyrinth of prints only thanks to the precious bibliographies prepared by Talvart - Place, Ducup de Saint-Paul and above all, lastly, Max Brun: we can therefore affirm with certainty that the first three sections of the copy presented here are entirely in conformity with the original edition (marked A in Brun's «Bibliographie», pp. 8-10 and 40-41). The last section instead corresponds to the edition signed C by Brun, the reprint authorized by Choderlos de Laclos through the addenda to the contract of 21 April with the publisher, which closely followed edition B: «Durand Neveu, harcelé par ses lecteurs, avant de publier C, prévue dans l'additif du contract, a édité hâtivement B» (Brun, «Bibliographie, »p. 43). In this last volume the errors of edition A have now been corrected and the Errata at the end of the volume has therefore been deleted. Talvart - Place, «Bibliographie des auteurs modernis de langue française», II, p. 290-300; M. Brun, «Bibliographie des éditions des Liaisons dangereuses portant le millésime 1782», Le livre et l’estampe, 1963; M. Brun, «Contribution bibliographique à l'étude des éditions des Liaisons dangereuses portant le millésime 1782», in «Bulletin du bibliophile», 1958; J.-M. Chatelain, Livres du Cabinet de Pierre Berès, 2003, nº 25.