Pierre de RONSARD. Les Œuvres... 5 parts in 4 volumes in-16, red jansenist morocco, 5 ribbed spine, interior lace, gilt edges (M. Lortic). Barbier, MBP, II-28 // Tchemerzine, V-474 et seq. I. (12 f.)-140f.-91 f.-(5 f.) / a8, e8, a-r8, s4, A-M8 // II. (8 f.)-249 f.-(1 f.) / *8, a-z8, A-H8, I2 // III. 222 f.-(2 f.) / A-Z8, Aa-Ee8 // IV. 135 f.-(1 f.) / A-R8 / 64 x 115 mm. First collective edition, partly original, extremely rare. It consists of five parts with separate titles and paginations. The first and second books of the Amours (volume I), the Odes (volume II), the Poems (volume III) and the Hymns (volume IV). It is illustrated with a medallion portrait of Ronsard, reproduced in all four volumes, and a portrait of Marc-Antoine Muret (volume I), both engraved after Jean Cousin. This is the first work by Ronsard to be published by Gabriel Buon, who had bought the Laporte estate in 1558. It marks the beginning of a long collaboration between the poet and the publisher, to whom Ronsard granted exclusive rights to publish all his works for six years. This edition is doubly important in that it contains eighty previously unpublished pieces and in that it offers the original text of the poems, many of whose lines Ronsard altered in later editions for religious reasons. The copy comes from the De Backer collection. We compared it with the Barbier-Mueller copy and noted a difference in the title of the Second livre des Amours, but our title conforms to that described by Tchemerzine and to that of the BnF. There are undoubtedly two states of this title. De Backer's catalogue entry emphasises the preciousness of this edition and describes it as extraordinarily rare. He gives a perfect technical and precise description: no more than three copies of these precious volumes are known, including one incomplete by several leaves, the one in the Bibliothèque nationale and this one. Barbier-Mueller lists only two complete copies, his own and that of the BnF, and cites three incomplete copies that he found, those in the De Backer, Maggs and Rowfant collections. The latter is now in the Houghton Library at Harvard and the Maggs copy has not been located. The De Backer copy that we offer remains. It contains two redone leaves in volume II, the title (*1) and the last leaf of the table (*8), conditions which make it undoubtedly one of the most complete in private hands and one of the only ones to be found. Damage to one volume and white wax at foot of volumes. Title of volume III cut out and replaced by a blank piece of paper, title and one leaf of volume II redone. The upper margins of volume I and the lateral margins of volume IV are a little short with damage to some marginalia. Provenance: Hector De Backer (bookplate, 17-20 February 1926, no. 396).