Les Amours de Messaline, Ci-devant Reine de l’Isle d’Albion.... Nouvelle Edition revue, corrigee, & augmentee d’une Cinquieme Partie.

12mo, 240pp, 19th century hard-grain red morocco, blind-stamped borders enclosed by a single gilt fillet, spine with 5 raised bands, decorated in gilt and blind, by Thouvenin, signed in blind at foot of spine, a.e.g. very fine. First published in 1689 in Four Parts, this new edition contains a Fifth Part on pages 185 - 240. The present edition is rare. CcF finds only two copies, Toulon and Lyon, no copy in Bibliotheque Nationale; OCLC locates 4 copies in Germany, Mannheim, Hamburg, Potsdam and Dresden, and 2 in US, Texas and Wisconsin; apparently no copy in UK. A scurrilous account of a scandalous affair between Louis XIV of France and Mary of Modena, wife of James II of England which, although the author claims in his preface "...on ne doit pas s'imaginer que la fiction ait quelque part dans cette Histoire." has no proven historical truth. It is claimed to be a translation of an English anti-catholic work attacking the monarch's conversion to catholicism. This would appear to be "The Amours of Messalina, late Queen of Albion... by a Woman of Quality" [Wing A3023] Gay/ Lemonnyer vol.1 col.149 Brunet I, 244