Physiologie du gout, ou Méditations de gastronomie transcendante, ouvrage théorique, historique et a
[Brillat-Savarin, Jena Anthelme]. Physiologie du gout, ou Méditations de gastronomie transcendante, ouvrage théorique, historique et a l'ordre du jour, Dédié aux Gastronomes Parisiens, par un professeur, membre de plusieurs sociétés savantes. Bruxelles: Société Typographique Belge, Ad. Wahlen et Compagnie, 1839. 470 pages. 18 x 12 cm. A rare Belgian reprint - a contrefaçon, in the language of the nineteenth-century French trade - of the most celebrated gastronomic work ever written, first published anonymously in Paris by Sautelet in December 1825 (dated 1826), two months before the author's death. Unrecorded in the standard gastronomic bibliographies and uncommon in commerce.
The imprint documents the Belgian reprint industry at its height. Adolphe Wahlen and his father Auguste, both established producers of counterfeit French editions before 1830, founded the Société Typographique Belge in 1836. The firm operated until its dissolution in 1846, when it merged into Tarlier and Dumont.
Two features distinguish this issue from the authorized Paris Charpentier edition of the same year. First, the title page retains the original anonymous formula "par un professeur," where the Charpentier 1839 was the first edition to set Brillat-Savarin's name at the head of the work; here the author is named only within. Second, the Brussels edition omits Balzac's Traité des excitans modernes.
Most interesting is the prefatory notice itself, four pages, beginning "Ce n'est point une présomptueuse Notice que nous avons l'intention de consacrer au souvenir de l'auteur de la Physiologie du goût; nous que avons eu le bonheur de connaître cet homme de bienn..." and signed at is close simply "M. de V." This is not the familiar notice by Baron Anthelme Richerand carried by the Paris editions from Sautelet 1828 onward, nor the later notices of Eugène Bareste (Lavigne, 1841) or Alphonse Karr (Gonet, 1848). The writer claims personal acquaintance with Brillat-Savarin, and the piece appears to be a distinct Belgian contribution to the biographical literature on the gastronome - apparently unrecorded, its author unidentified. Note that at least one modern trade description of this edition states that it reprints the Richerand notice from the Charpentier edition; the signature in this copy shows that to be mistaken.
Title page with wood-engraved vignette of massed fruit and vegetables; wood-engraved head - and tailpieces to the chapters. Contemporary binding of marbled paper-covered boards, tan calf spine decorated in gilt, black title label. Scattered foxing and light damp-toning throughout, heaviest in the margins of the preliminary leaves. Hardcover. $275.00
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