Beschreibung:

[Alliette, Jean-Baptiste]. Manière de se Récréer avec le Jeu de Cartes Nommées Tarots. Pour servir de troisiéme [-quartrieme] Cahier à cet Ouvrage, par Etteilla, 1st edition, Amsterdam & Paris: Segault, Legras, 1783[-1785], comprising: the third cahier of Manière de se Récréer avec un Jeu de Cartes; the Supplement to the third cahir (title missing?); Fragment sur les Hautes Sciences; and the fourth cahier (without the Supplement), 7 engraved plates, including folding plate at rear titled 'Horloge Planetaire', 3 engraved diagrams mounted on letterpress, occasional early marginalia, some minor light toning and marks, intermittent worming to lower blank margin, bound with Jeu des Tarots, ou le Livre de Thot, ouvert à la Maniere des Égyptiens, Memphis [i.e. Paris, 1788], worming as before, edges untrimmed, contemporary blue wrappers, spine chipped with loss, slightly frayed to edges, 12mo (Qty: 1) The Manière was originally published as four cahiers in 1783, with supplements to each of the cahiers being added in 1785. The Fragment sur les Hautes Sciences, present here, and a fifth cahir designed to precede the others, titled Philosophie des Hauts Sciences ..., meant that the final work consisted of a total of 10 parts. All combinations of the parts are scarce. The frontispieces to Cahiers III and IV are of Temperance and Prudence, presumed to illustrate designs from the author's cartomantic tarot packs. French occultist Jean-Baptiste Alliette was one of the first to popularise tarot cards as a means of divination and to make a living from the same. His work, linking tarot cards to the mythical Egyptian Book of Thoth, was published hard on the heels of Court de Gébelin and Comte de Mellet's 1781 hypothesis linking tarot cards with Egyptian mysticism, Alliette arguing a claim of priority over the two authors whose work had beaten his to the press. Alliette's Jeu des Tarots, with the spurious imprint of Memphis, has been described as "no more than a prospectus for his professional services." (Dummett, The Game of Tarot, pp.107/8)