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L'Anti-Justine, ou Les delices de l'amour. Au Palais-Royal: Chez feue la Veuve Girouard, très-connue, 1798. Arc.d.79.14
This anonymous volume was written by the French author
Restif de la Bretonne (1734-1806) and was one of his last works. During a
literary career of 35 years he produced over 50 works, including a
highly-regarded autobiography and philosophical programmes for reform, but his
modern reputation has been shaped by his writing of numerous erotic short
stories. This work is considered to be one of his most extreme, written as a
retaliation to the Marquis de Sade's Justine which had appeared in
1791. While L'Anti-Justine is as explicit in some of its narrative as
Sade's work, Restif intended it to show that sensuality, in contrast to the
mere lust Sade described, could be used to cement marriage, and therefore
support the family as an institution. Through promoting the family, it was
possible to uphold the State; Restif's personal philosophy was based strongly
around paternalistic values and the importance of morality, based on a yearning
to return from the corruption of the city to the idealised peace and order of
his rural childhood.
Restif printed the work himself, not wanting to risk going to a publisher. Instead he ascribed it to the Veuve Girouard, a specialist in erotic printing whose workshop had been raided by the police in 1797, while she was printing Justine. The volume demonstrates some of the difficulties of printing in secret, as Restif used several different types and numerous abbreviations. On one page the type appears to have slipped during the printing, with several words at the beginning of the lines misplaced. He only produced 6 copies, of which four are in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and only one of those is complete. The book as it survives is in two parts, and the afterword to Part 1 states that the author intends to write seven or eight parts in total, all of the same nature. Restif himself in a letter stated that the work was a 'bagatelle que je supprimerais en tout état', though all the extant copies end mid-sentence at p. 252 with a catchword suggesting that part of the text is lost. There is also a list of 38 plates which were intended to appear in Part 1, though again these are not found in any extant copy. L'Anti-Justine was never published, although there were many later editions and translations. P.L. Jacob writing in hisBibliographie et iconographie de tous les ouvrages de Restif... (1875) judged this book very harshly, and noted that while translations and editions were freely circulating in Holland and Germany, happily they had been banned in France; 'La France est le seul pays du monde dans lequel la morale publique soit protegée par la loi'. A past owner of the volume has added by hand 'et l'Angleterre'.
This copy, one of only 6 produced by Restif in his own
workshop, has a history which suggests the book was often bought and sold
privately, out of the public eye. According to a handwritten note tipped in to
the front of the volume dated 1876, it had belonged to the bibliophile Armand
Cigongne, to the Duc d'Aumale, and to a Docteur Morgan. The volume does include
the bookplate of Armand Cigongne (1790-1859) though the volume is not listed in
an 1861 catalogue of his library. Another bookplate in the front of the volume
appears to have been created to give an association with the collector Eugene
Paillet (1829-1901); it includes the owl and his motto Mente libera,
but is made up of several separate pieces assembled to form a single plate. It
had been bound in 1868 into its current beautiful binding, with flowers on the
covers and a repeated motif of a priapic satyr on the endpapers. This was the
work of Marius Michel, a gilder for the bookbinding firm Chambolle-Duru. He was
considered one of the greatest book decorators of the 19th century, and a
volume on French binding notes that in a time of heavy-handed overuse of gold,
'son or semblait être posé avec délicatesse par des mains
de fée'.
At some point in the late 19th century the book was bought by the explorer and bibliophile Frank Linsly James (1851-1890). James notes in his own interleaved copy of Jacob's Bibliographie that he bought the volume from the Paris bookseller Morgand for the sum of £57. It is not listed in the monthly catalogues issued by Morgand in the late 19th century, suggesting that it may have been a private sale. The price reflects the book's rarity, when compared to a first edition of La femme dans trois états (1773) which Morgand sold to James for £1.8s, and a first edition of Restif's first work, La famille vertueuse (1767) which cost £4.10s. The volume was bequeathed to the University Library by Louis Colville Gray Clarke (1881-1960), director of the Fitzwilliam Museum and a great collector of artworks and books. James' library was sold by his niece at Sotheby's in 1936, and Clarke bought many of his volumes of Restif at this sale, but notes in the interleaved bibliography that this particular book was bought directly from Mrs Arthur James (Frank Linsly's niece) for £70. Once again the volume is bought and sold privately and out of the public eye, and at great expense.
Clarke gave the library a large number of Restif volumes, the majority of which are kept in one collection, CCC.23. This particular title, however, was placed into the class Arc . Originally created in the early 20th century, Arc is a collection of books which may only be read under supervision in the Rare Books Reading Room. The collection was created for books which were considered by early 20th century staff to be likely to deprave or corrupt university students; now it is reserved for books which are felt to be likely to cause unusual offence, or those which have been withdrawn by the publishers for legal reasons. It is similar to the Bibliothèque Nationale collection Enfer, in which their four copies of L'Anti-Justine are kept.
References and further reading:
- Charles A. Porter, Restif's novels, or, An autobiography in search of an author (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1867) 701.2.c.4.40
- P.L. Jacob, Bibliographie et iconographie de tous les ouvrages de Restif de la Bretonne (Paris: Auguste Fontaine, 1875) CCC.23.253
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