[GARSAULT, Francois Alexandrew Pierre de] MOUSTALON (pseud.) (Auther). Encyclopédie des Jeunes Gens ou Memorial Raisonné de ce qu'il y a d'utile et d'intéressant dans les connaissances humaines … par Moustalon, Auteur du Lycee de la Jeuness. Paris: Librairie Economique. 1807.
8vo.; 2 vols.; contemporary French quarter tan calf-backed unusual wood-grain patterned boards, flat spines elaborately and decoratively tooled gilt in compartments with onlaid double-lettering labels, again tooled in gilt; plain edges; pp. iii-viii + 512, including index; [ii] + 548, including index; attractively illustrated with a total of 6 folding engraved maps, one fine engraved world map, or Mappa Mundi, and 18 other diagramatically engraved plates (2 on one page); a very good set, handsomely presented; externally clean with very mild craquelure to the spine leathers, some rubbing to joints but no splitting, some wear to forecorners and edge-abrasion, with dusting and some spotting to edges of book block, internally uncommonly clean and almost unspotted, with all plates and maps in remarkably crisp state with only a few small marks, 3 very small forecorner tears to lower margins and a 1cm fore-edge tear, with small contemporary or very early onlaid booklabel "M. Dutillet" to inner cover of both volumes, apparently lacking a prelim (probably a half-title) in Tome 2 and with mild splitting to a front blank at gutter.
"Nouvelle Edition" or New Edition, completely rewritten and considerably enlarged. This work is an almost unrecognisable reworking of the author's earlier "Le Lycee de la Jeunesse ou, Les Etudes reparees", from 1786, which was half the size and unillustrated, apart from a portrait frontispiece.
A fascinating encyclopaedic set for the use of young French students in the first decade of the nineteenth century. The work comprises a wealth of information covering a wide range of subjects including a substantial section on Arithmetic (Geometry and Algebra); Astronomy; Philosophy and Religion; Medicine (Anatomy, Surgery and Apothecary); Mineralogy; Animals; History (including Classical); Government and a large section on World Geoography including a total of 7 fine folding engraved maps (Mappa Mundi; 2 world maps; Europe; Asia; Africa; Central America and North America).
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