Rare books, manuscripts and ephemera from five centuries

Modern epistolary style for Göttingen Francophiles 

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COLOM DU CLOS, Isaac de. MODELLES DE LETTRES sur toutes sortes de Sujets, pour enseigner à apliquer les règles du stile; Ouvrage publié en faveur de ceux qui aprennent la Langue françoise. Nouvelle Edition revue par l’Auteur. À Gottingue: Chez la Veuve d’Abram Vandenhoeck, 1764.    £400

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Second edition. Two volumes bound in one, continuously paginated, 8vo, pp. [x], xviii, [iv], 448; 449-880, [29] indexes, [1] blank, [2] errata; woodcut vignette on title, head- and tailpieces; paper lightly browned, occasional spotting, but still largely fresh; purple ink stamp of the Schloss Buseck (north of Saarbrücken) on front free endpaper, ink trials on verso of same; in contemporary drab boards, title in ink on spine; a couple of ink doodles to upper cover and spine, stain to lower corner of upper cover, and light wear, but still an attractive copy.

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Second edition, expanded and corrected from the first of 1760 (which had been reprinted in 1761 and 1762), of this comprehensive collection of epistolary models for German speakers learning French, by Isaac de Colom de Clos (1708-1795) who was professor of French and Philosophy at the University of Göttingen.

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Colom de Clos had previously published, in 1754, a work on French prose style (Réflexions sur le stile, et en particulier sur la manière d'ecrire des lettres); in his preface, he explains that he had been asked on the back of this to offer a volume of model letters to demonstrate the application of the rules he had proposed in his earlier work, along the lines of collections of letters by the likes of Choffin, Richelet, and others. ‘I have firstly written with the aim of giving foreigners, especially Germans, who are learning our language, models of each genre and type of letters... and to demonstrate how one should apply the rules of style... one needs in letters to have a natural, neat, noble and concise style... that is the modern style which I have tried to observe and demonstrate in these models’ (pp. vi-vii). Many of the examples selected are from writers of earlier centuries, and Colom is careful to note that the expectations of epistolary style had changed by the time he was writing; each letter is edited with footnotes and, sometimes, alternatives explaining how the same thoughts might better be expressed in modern style. Over seven chapters, Colom de Clos presents examples of love letters, offers of service, greetings, condolence, thanks, farewells, formal requests, moral instruction, satire, invitations, and much more; the tables at the end of the second volume allow the reader to search not only by author or subject but also by the stylistic rule (as found in the earlier book) applied, as well as identifying the primary Germanisms that are to be corrected when writing in French.

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The work proved successful, with both the first edition and the present one being reprinted at least once, and a further edition appearing in 1782. 

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VD18 10554009; OCLC records no copies of this or any earlier edition outside Continental Europe. 

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