RABELAIS (François). Les Œuvres. Contenant la vie, faicts & dicts heroïques de Gargantua, & de son filz Pantagruel. Avec la Prognostication Pantagrueline. S.l.n.n., 1556. In-16 (120 x 68 mm), red morocco, double gilt fillet, medallion with four gilt fleurons in the centre, spine decorated, inner lace, gilt edges (Capé). An important edition beautifully printed in round letters, "in small, very neat characters, reminiscent of the productions of Jean de Tournes" (Plan). This is the second or third edition of Rabelais under the title of œuvres; the first appeared without any indication of place in 1553, and the other in Troyes, also in 1556. "This edition is noteworthy for the fidelity and correctness of its text", say Rawles and Screech. The first two books follow the edition by François Juste printed in Lyon in 1542. The Third Book contains 48 chapters, the last of which is numbered XLIX because of the gap in the XXVIIIth. The Fourth Book is complete in 67 chapters. It follows an unbound copy of the edition given by Michel Fezandat in 1552 and contains in the final 13 pp. the Brieve declaration - "first pantagruelic glossary..., incontestably in the hand of Rabelais" (Plan, p. 147). Note at the end of chapter XXXII, p. 628, the phrase "les Demoniacles Calvins imposteurs de Geneve", which had been deleted in Baltasar Aleman's 1552 edition of the Quart livre and in the 1553 edition of the Œuvres. A very fine copy in a fine binding by Capé. Underlining and early handwritten annotations in Latin, of a lexicographical nature, traced in tiny handwriting in the margins and between the lines in Gargantua. Faded inscription at foot of title. Copy without provenance mark. Deschamps and Brunet cite, in the Supplément au Manuel du libraire, two copies of this edition in red morocco by Capé: 1° the copy, judged "mediocre", in the Félix Soleil library (1872, no. 1637, 100 fr.), later presented in a catalogue by the Fontaine bookshop (1875, no. 1423, 225 fr.), and 2° the "pretty copy" of the Bordeaux collector Henri Bordes (1873, no. 412, sold for 75 fr. to Potier). Given the quality of our copy, it could only be the second. Plan, n°94 - Rawles & Screech, n°60 - Brunet, IV, 1055 & Suppl. II, 366 - Picot-Rothschild, II, n°1515 - Tchemerzine, V, 304b - USTC 9966.