Mémoires de la vie de Jacques-Auguste de Thou [...]. Ouvrage meslé de prose et de vers, avec la traduction de la Préface qui est au-devant de sa grande histoire. Première édition traduite du latin en françois.

4to: front.-[28]-276 pp. (incomplete of pp. 33-40 = quire E).

Contemp. dark red morocco, triple gilt fillet frame and coat of arms on boards, gilt repeated crowned cypher on spine with raised bands, gilt marbled edges (turn-ins and corners skilfully restored). Nice copy.

First edition of the translation, made on the 1st complete edition published in Latin (Geneva, 1620), of this autobiography, written in the third person, by J.-A. de Thou (1553-1617), magistrate, historian and bibliophile, decisive actor in the religious conflicts of its time. Ill. with the portrait of the author by J. Lijmende. Barbier attributes the transl. of the verses to F. Costard and that of the prose to J.-G. Le Petit.
Ref. Barbier III:202. - Lankhorst 199 (quotes 32 prelim. pp.).- Cioranescu 16th c. 21141. - BnF. - Cp. STCN (later ed.). - Sonza, Chr. - "La "Vita" de Jacques-Auguste de Thou : Une vie pour écrire l’histoire", in Écrire l'histoire, 5, 2010, pp. 141-150.
Prov. Arms and cypher of Louis XIV (supralibros; ref. Olivier 2494, tools n. 10 & 21). - Margaret Blake, "Palace Hampton Court" (ms. entries), one of the ten natural children of the famous actress and courtesean Dorothy Jordan, and probably the daughter of the Duke of Clarence, future King William IV. Margaret lived at the palace from 1820 to 1847 (cf. Parker, S.E. - Grace & Favour: A handbook of who lived where in Hampton Court Palace, 1750 to 1950. Surrey, 2005, p. 44).