Beschreibung:

LORRIS, Guillaume de, and Jean de MEUNG. Roman de la Rose . Paris: [Le Petit Laurens, for Antoine Vérard or Jean Petit after 1493]. Chancery 2° (253 x 175mm). Collation: a 8 b-g 6 h 8 i-z 6 (a1 title and printer's device, a2r text, z5v colophon, z6r large woodcut of Jean de Meung, z6v blank). 140 (of 142, a1 and z6 supplied in facsimile) leaves. 87 woodcuts (final woodcut in facsimile). 43 lines, double columns. Type: 1:99B, 2:210G. (A few discreet repairs, occasionally touching text but without loss.) 19th-century red morocco doublé, Seillière supralibros (Bibliothèque de Mello) on both covers, gilt inner dentelles, g.e., by Hardy-Mennil. Provenance : Baron Achille Seillière (supralibros); C.W. Dyson Perrins (booklabel, sale Sotheby's 4 November 1946, no.389). Begun about 1237 by Guillaume de Lorris and finished after his death by Jean de Meung, the Roman de la Rose tells the story of a lover's quest in a dream for the strongly guarded Rose. It is a courtly romance drawing on classical antecedents, such as Ovid and Boethius. This edition, the second associated with Vérard, uses the original blocks, with some substitutions and omissions, from the influential series which first appeared in Siber's edition of about 1485. Copies of this edition are known with either Petit's or Vérard's device, or with neither one. C 5158; BMC VIII, 162 (IB. 40260); Bourdillon, Early editions of the Roman de La Rose , edition Folio F; Macfarlane 124.