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François de Salignac de -La Mothe-Fénelon.
Les aventures de Télémaque.
[Paris]: De l'imprimerie de Monsieur, 1785.
Acquired through the Hearst Foundation -& the Kenyon Law Starling Funds.
This edition is a fine example of the elegance of eighteenth-century French printing and illustration, featuring seventy-two full-page engravings by Jean Baptiste Tilliard after Charles Monnet. The suite of plates was published in twelve parts in 1773 in an edition of two hundred copies; this 1785 edition of Fénelon's text was specially commissioned to accompany these plates. The text describes the doings of Telemachus, son of the hero of Homer's Odyssey, but many felt that the adventures of Telemachus in search of his father -Odysseus could also be seen as expressing Fénelon's political ideas, and stand as a critique of contemporary French politics and culture. Fénelon was a French archbishop, theologian, and scholar whose liberal views generated concerted opposition from both religious and political leaders. In 1689 Fénelon became tutor to Louis, duc de Bourgogne, grandson and heir to Louis XIV; Fénelon wrote this work for the prince's education and included an appendix on the conscience of a king. It was a very popular work, and was published in dozens of editions and translations.
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