GRAFFIGNY (Mme de): Letters of a Peruvian woman. A Peine, no - Lot 55

Lot 55
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150 - 200 EUR
GRAFFIGNY (Mme de): Letters of a Peruvian woman. A Peine, no - Lot 55
GRAFFIGNY (Mme de): Letters of a Peruvian woman. A Peine, no date (1747). Bound after: Lettres d'Aza ou d'un péruvien, conclusion les Lettres Péruviennes, 1749, 3 ff. and 186 pp. 1 volume In-12 contemporary marbled calf, smooth spine decorated, red edges (qq tiny rubs, marginal repair at the bottom of the last leaf). 2 ff., VIII and 186 pp. A great success in the 18th century, the year 1747 alone will see many reprints, the epistolary novel puts on the front of the stage a young Indian girl separated from her fiancé by the conquest of Peru by the Spaniards. Captive of the invaders, Zilia will be redeemed by a French officer. Arriving at the court of Louis XV, the young girl will bear witness to all that she sees and sheds light on the failings of the society of the Ancien Régime with a singular look. The work is a combination of Guillerages' Portuguese Letters and Montesquieu's Persian Letters, but in a lyrical and sentimental style, with all the letters addressed to Aza bearing the seal of separation. In addition to the view of a foreigner on the French customs of the time, we will remember nowadays that the work paints the spiritual and physical evolution of a lonely woman, bargained for, separated, torn between her belonging to an old culture and her life in France, between her old love and the demands of a new passion she has aroused.
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