Restif De La Bretonne - Mr. Nicolas. Jonquières, 1924, Illustrated By Sylvain Sauvage.

RESTIF DE LA BRETONNE (Nicolas Edmé) - Monsieur Nicolas or the human heart unveiled. Intimate memoirs of Restif de la Bretonne. Paris, Chez Henri Jonquières et Cie, 1924; in-4, 385 + 442 + 414 + 621 pp., brown half-calf bindings, spine with 4 raised bands, preserved covers. The 4 volumes. Illustrated with woodcuts in black and white by Sylvain Sauvage. Nicolas Edmé Restif, known as Restif de La Bretonne, also called Rétif and de La Bretonne, was a French writer born in 1734 in Sacy and died in 1806 in Paris. Son of a plowman from Yonne, he moved with his family when he was eight years old in the farm of La Bretonne, located in the same village of Sacy. Having become a typographer in Auxerre and Dijon, Nicolas Restif de La Bretonne moved to Paris in 1761: it was then that he began to write. His personal life is complicated and he is probably a police informer. Through his job in printing, he met writers like Beaumarchais, Louis-Sébastien Mercier, Grimod de La Reynière and Cazotte. One of the masterpieces of 18th century eroticism, his major work and what is more autobiographical. Good edition consistent with the edition of Isidore Liseux and the edition that Restif de la Bretonne published in 1796.