FULL TITLE: LES AVANTURES DE TÉLÉMAQUE, FILS D’ULYSSE
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Written by Francois De Salignac, de la Mothe Fenelon
Printed by A Amsterdam Chez J. Wetstein & G. Smith, & Zacharie Chatelain. A Rotterdam Chez Jean Hofhout.
DESCRIPTION:
"...the true key to the museum of the eighteenth-century imagination.”
– Jean Claude-Bonnet
This beautiful leather-bound 1734 edition is extensively illustrated with plates preceding each of the 24 chapters and includes supplementary material.
François de Salignac, de la Mothe-Fénelon. Les Avantures de Télémaque, fils d'Ulysse. Amsterdam: J. Wetstein & G. Smith & Zacharie Chatelain. Rotterdam: Jean Hofhout, 1734. First Edition, 4to, XXVII, 424 pp.; single column, text printed in black, half title, title page printed in red and black; engraved illustrated frontpiece, portrait of author, engraved title vignette, 24 engraved plates, head and tail pieces; leather bound with marble boards and all edges marbled, six spine compartments decorated with gilded floral motif, gold stamped red spine label. A clean copy of this influential piece of 18th-century French literature.
François Fénelon’s Les Avantures de Telemaque, fils d’Ulysse follows Telemachus, and his tutor, Mentor, as they journey to find his father Ulysees. The text is a pedagogical narrative written for the instruction of the young Louis de France, duc de Bourgogne, (the "Petit Dauphin"), second in line to the throne of France, while Fénelon was his tutor. Originally published in 1699 without his consent, the text would be republished posthumously by Fénelon’s family in 1717. While initially controversial, due to its seeming critique of absolute monarchy, and thus implied condemnation of Louis the XIV’s autocratic reign, it would become “one of the most widely read, re-edited, and imitated texts of eighteenth-century European literature” (Twiss, 2025). Fenelon’s rendering of Homeric narrative to prose was quite provocative and influential, inspiring a well-spring of literature, music, philosophy, and art. "This so-called Télémacomania began as a literary phenomenon but immediately embroiled both opera and the visual arts in its unprecedented scandal” (Clausius 2023, p. xxx in Petersen 2025). It so impressed the philosopher Rousseau that it was one of the books given to the titular character of his Émile and was the inspiration for Mozart’s Idomeneo. Its prevalence and influence have led Les Avantures de Telemaque to be called "the true key to the museum of the eighteenth-century imagination" (Bonnet, 1998).
CONDITION: Very Good condition. Leather boards in good condition with some issues, rebacked with extensive cracking and wear of the original leather on front and back boards, including gouges and lacks; corners bumped, minor lifting of red spine label, and the top raised band bumped; front hinge cracked but tight; otherwise sturdy and well bound. Some wrinkling to marbled pages with a lack at bottom corner of marbled pastedown; old bookseller pencil notations on front blanks, with large pink stain and watermark; title page with several amateur repairs; foxing, toning and minor staining throughout, with moisture stains mostly near the front of the book, including the title page, occasional small punctures and holes; a few dog eared pages, some creasing and undulations to paper; no damage to plates nor text.
BOOK MEASUREMENTS: 4to. 23 cm X 28.7 cm, 9 in x 11.2 in
TOTAL LENGTH: XXVII, 424 pp., engraved frontispiece, portrait, and 24 engraved plates.
