[Etteilla, anagram of Jean-Baptiste Alliette]. L’Art de tirer les cartes, ou le Moyen de lire dans l’avenir, par le rapprochement des événemens qui démontrent sans réplique l’Art chronomancique, Auquel on a joint l’interprétation des Songes, en se servant des mêmes Cartes ; Un Traité des Songes et des Visions nocturnes, d’après les Egyptiens et les Perses, avec les numéros de la Loterie nationale qui y correspondent, ainsi que leurs sorties et leur récapitulation, avec les plus heureux pour l’an 1811, d’après les plus grands Calculateurs, Et ceux sortis de la Loterie de Bruxelles, depuis son établissement jusqu’à ce jour. Traduit d’un manuscrit arabe. Memphis en Egypte, sans nom, 1811. Inséré dans Calendrier pour l’année 1811, viiie [sic] de l’Empire. No place, no name, 1811. In-32 (10 x 6,5 cm). 96 pp. [the first 10 pages, including the title of the calendar, unnumbered], [42] pp. (3 of which are blank); all pages, including titles, are framed. Woodcut frontispiece and large folding plate of the pack of cards bound at the end. Contemporary red morocco, smooth back mute, fillet and roulette framing the covers, blue tabis to pastdowns, all edges gilt, blue-white-red domino paper cover preserved.
Clandestine counterfeited edition (pp. 9 to 96) of Petit Etteilla, the edition entitled L’Art de tirer les cartes, published in Paris by the bookseller Deroy in 1796. Our edition has been expanded to include the numbers drawn for the national and Brussels lotteries, from 1776 to 1793 (the year the lottery was abolished), then from 16 Frimaire An VI (6 December 1797, the date it was re-established) to 1810, with the 5 ‘ lucky’ numbers (to be played) for 1811.
The frontispiece is a crude, inverted reproduction.
The fold-out plate of the small Ettilla, complete with the 33rd card, that of the significator, is particularly rare.
One of the very first divination decks, designed by Etteilla around 1770, a tarot for divinatory ‘cartomancy’ based, like the gypsy decks, on ordinary French playing cards.
From the library of Édouard-Melite Pelay (Rouen, 1842-id., 1921), bibliophile and collector, with his bookplate engraved in red. He was director of the L’Urbaine insurance company. He was dean of the departmental Antiquities Commission, a member of the Rouen Inscriptions Commission and of the Friends of Rouen Monuments, of which he was president in 1904-1905. Archivist of the Société de l’histoire de Normandie, president and founder in 1870 of the Société rouennaise de bibliophiles, he continued the Cornelian Bibliography with P. Le Verdier. A scholar, he built up a Norman collection that served as a source for his bibliographical and historical works. The city of Rouen purchased local history documents in 1896, followed by a donation of the collector’s Cornelian library in 1917. He worked to create the Musée Corneille in Rouen, in the house where the writer was born.
Modern bookplate engraved in blue and red with the initials ‘I. M.’, coat of arms and Moor’s head.
Caillet, Manuel bibliographique des sciences psychiques ou occultes, n° 463, cites only one copy published in Lyon in 1815, in-18 with engraved frontispiece, and another, in Rouen, by Labbey, undated, in-12. ; Grand-Carteret, Les Almanachs français, n° 1438, for the year 1804.
A few small black spots on the binding, a few discreet foxing in the text, a black ink stain in the outer margin of the fold-out plate without affecting the wood.
A fine and rare copy.
1 800 €