Lausanne, Jean Mourer & Guillaume de Bure the Elder, 1788. 8vo. (2) ff, 3-XIII pp, (1), 185 pp. Modern wrappers. Edges untrimmed; a very fresh copy. Very rare sole edition of this French translation of "Legaat van Gillis Blasius Stern" (1784), a satirical imitation of Laurence Sterne. On the Continent, as Agnes Zwaneveld notes, "gradually there arose a generalized awareness of Sterne’s fiction as both satirical and sentimental" ("Laurens Sterne in Holland", The Shandean, Volume 5, 1993). "The [present work’s] title could be taken as an invocation of a spirit of satire and social commentary as much as an acknowledgement of the author’s sources of inspiration. In my view Donker Curtius addresses a general awareness of Sterne’s fiction as both satirical and truly sentimental, without much distinction between Tristram Shandy and A Sentimental Journey, and Sterne’s name, like that of Gil Blas, was used as a hieroglyph of a playful attitude. Donker Curtius’ joke for private consumption is to me an indication that by 1784 Sterne’s work had become an object of common lore among educated people." (Zwaneveld, "A Bookseller's Hobby-Horse, and the Rhetoric of Translation"). - Curtius employed this allegorical vehicle for his own social commentary on contemporary Dutch society during the ‘Patriotic Revolution’ of 1780-87. The travails of Gille Blasius Sterne - identified here as the great-nephew of Laurence - must have resonated equally with the anonymous translator of the present work; Lausanne would experience its own patriotic revolution against Bernese rule in 1798. - The translator … [Click Below for Full Description]