Oeuvres de Jean Racine

Paris: de l'imprimerie de P. Didot L'Ainé. 1813.

Five volumes. 8vo. 215x135mm. pp. xxiii [i bl], 325, [3]; 369, [3]; 370, [2]; 416; 325, [7].
Red half morocco, orange morocco covered boards. Raised bands, compartments decorated with a single gilt flower motif, second and fourth compartment lettered and numbered in gilt. Some marking to boards and rubbing and wear to extremities. Marbled endpapers. Internally very good but with some foxing. Some pages unopened. Front pastedown of each volume has the armorial bookplate of Charles Bowyer Adderley, Hams Hall, Warwickshire and the label of Hams Hall Library. Charles Adderley was a nineteenth century politician who served in the Cabinets of Lord Derby and Disraeli. He married the eldest daughter of Chandos Leigh who created the great Stoneleigh Library. Perhaps Adderley, who had Hams rebuilt by James Wyatt, was trying to do the same. After Adderley's death, Hams was sold with the new owner dismantling and rebuilding it in the Cotswolds. Its original site, on the edge of Birmingham, is now a power station and rail distribution centre. A tragedy beyond even Racine's imagination.