Etienne Dolet - Cicero's Familiar Letters

Les Épistres familières de Marc Tulle Cicéron (Cicero's Familiar Letters), translated from Latin into French by Étienne Dolet, printed "À Lyon, chez Étienne Dolet, 1542," with a ten-year printing privilege noted at the bottom.

Étienne Dolet (1509–1546) was a French humanist scholar, printer, and translator from Orléans, one of the most important and controversial figures in early French printing. He set up his own press in Lyon in the early 1540s and was a key proponent of translating classical Latin texts into vernacular French — part of the broader humanist project to make ancient learning accessible beyond a Latin-reading elite. He's also remembered for his tragic end: he was executed for heresy in Paris in 1546, accused partly over his translations and printed works, making books from his press historically significant artifacts of Renaissance censorship struggles.

April 1542 edition as the original printing of his translation and note it's rarely found in private hands today, an octavo volume roughly 160x 110 mm with sixteen books of letters and Dolet's printer's device on both the title page and the final leaf. The bibliographic reference work by C. Longeon catalogs this Dolet edition under numbers 164-165.

Bookplate: Edward Huth, Wykehurst Park
Probably: Edward Huth, eldest son of Henry Huth (1815-1878) the prominent bibliophile.

Engraved Bookplate: Robert de Billy (1894 - 1991)

Full green morocco binding. Spine with raised bands, finely decorated with gilt compartments. Triple gilt fillet framing the covers. Gilt edges.

Longeon, Bibliographie des œuvres d’Etienne Dolet, 158 - Richard Copley Christie, pp. 345-347 et n° 54 - Brunet, II, 58 - USTC 24273 - Index Aureliensis Catalogus librorum sedecimo Saeculo Impressorum, n° 138228 – Yves Chevrel et Jean-Yves Masson (sous la direction de), Histoire des traductions en langue française, XVe et XVIe siècles, Verdier 2004.