BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE J.H Études de la nature. Seconde édition, revue, corrigée et augmentée.

Tchemerzine-Scheler, V, 647 ; Quérard, VIII, 364 ; voir INED, 440 (first edition in 3 volumes in 1784).

First edition of Paul et Virginie, which appears here for the first time in the Études de la nature (volume IV). It also includes La Chaumière Indienne (volume V).

The first separate edition of Paul et Virginie appeared in bookshops in 1789. This pastoral novel is the result of a two-year stay by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737-1814) on the Île de France (now Mauritius) between 1768 and 1770.

"L’auteur de Paul et Virginie raconte une nature digne du paradis, une terre sauvage et non souillée de la main de l’homme. Une référence à la fois au paradis et à Arcadie, lieu idéal tiré de la mythologie grecque. L’harmonie entre les êtres et la nature est un sujet cher à Bernardin de St Pierre. On parle du reste à propos de l’auteur d’auteur naturaliste. Il rejoint dans cette société idéalisée les propos de Jean Jacques Rousseau qui lui-même espère une société très proche de la nature et l’attends de façon idéalisée" (le petit lecteur).

In Paul et Virginie, Bernardin de Saint-Pierre tells the story of a pastoral idyll. It is thanks to the unspoilt, wild nature in which they have grown up that Paul and Virginie become beautiful, good and virtuous. However, their love is thwarted by a tragic tragedy, Virginie's death in a shipwreck. This sense of the grandeur of all-powerful nature is in keeping with the sublime aesthetic developed by Edmund Burke a few years earlier in 1757 (A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful).

However, by focusing his drama on love and feelings, Bernardin de Saint Pierre introduces what would become romantic leitmotifs a few years later. The loss of a soul mate in tragic, theatrical circumstances, the heroes' powerlessness in the face of events, the torments of the soul, the beauty found in pain – these are all motifs found in Romantic writers and painters. Chateaubriand was no stranger to these themes, which he developed in particular in Atala.

Inserted in this copy is a letter addressed to Bernardin de Saint-Pierre in which the author, who signed his name 'Clémént', invites the writer to his home in the town of Romeny-sur-Marne and praises the merits of his writings. This 3-page letter, written by two hands, is dated 31 July 1788. Also included is an autograph note of 6 cloths from Bernardin de Saint-Pierre relating to volumes 4 and 5 of this edition.

A fine copy, well preserved in its binding decorated with elements of nature.