24mo in 8s. [14], [v]-xi, [1], 102, [vii]-viii; [5]-128pp, [i]-iii, [1]. Two parts in one volume, with the index of each bound to follow the respective parts. With half-title, and a hand-coloured engraved frontispiece portrait, and 59 further hand-coloured portraits throughout. Finely bound in nineteenth-century elaborately gilt-tooled straight-grained green morocco, housed within a green morocco slipcase. A.E.G., marbled endpapers. From the libraries of Carlo De Poortere and Sir David Lionel Salomons (1851-1925), with their bookplates to front endpapers; the description from the latter's sale catalogue tipped to verso of FFEP and blank fly-leaf (where it fetched £5, 10s).

A rare and beautifully illustrated collection, with distinguished provenance, of the 'Gifts of Thalia'; biographies of French actors and actresses, anecdotes of the French stage, and Luigi Riccoboni's (1676-1753) treatise on declamation, preceded by an almost perfunctory almanack on just four leaves.

Included amongst the list of otherwise entirely French performers is a nine-page biography of English actor, playwright and theatre manager David Garrick (1717-1779), described as 'un grand artiste est de tous les payes' whose talents belong to the republic of arts', and whose likeness is also featured here on an engraved plate. The anonymous author notes that whilst the work is otherwise concerned with the theatre of Paris, it would be remiss to deprive his readership of 'un article aussi interessant que celui que nos fournit le celebre Garrick'.

OCLC and COPAC locate just three copies worldwide (BNF, Harvard and Morgan).