Anonymous Solitaire (1 results)

FIRST (ONLY) EDITION, woodcut device on title and the odd ornament within the text; title a little stained, and with a couple of chips to fore-edge, some foxing, worming in the lower margins but no loss; pp. [xvi], 358, [10, ads], 12mo; mid- to late-19th-century red calf backed boards, spine slightly darkened, corners a bit worn, exposing cloth tips. A brief and vigourous late seventeenth-century exposition of the virtues according to established religion, heavy on the sins of the flesh. It is in two parts: Vertus Théologales, and Vertus Cardinales, with a handy index to the whole. The second part is less intensely religious, and strays into the prudential with virginity, abstinence, meekness, magnificence, poverty and vengeance as headlines around which the author defines a worthy life. The writer refers to the work as 'un fruit du Desert', alluding to his solitary retreat.