Clémentine, ou la jeune lesbienne, histoire galante et philosophique.

À Lampsaque [Paris?], chez les marchands de nouveautés, An VII [1798–1799].

12°. 107 pp. With an engraved frontispiece.

19th-century half red morocco with marbled sides; spine with raised bands and gold-tooled title.

An exceptionally rare erotic novel about same-sex relationships between women, centred on a young woman from Lesbos, whose sensual and intellectual formation is framed through Greek philosophy, particularly the Cynic school. We found no other copies of this book. Not in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, WorldCat, or any other institutional catalogues or trade databases.
               This small, easily concealed book exemplifies late-eighteenth-century libertine literature, in which voluptuousness is framed through a pseudo-classical lens. The name “Clémentine” follows recurring conventions in erotic fiction (cf. Gay, 1864). The imprint “À Lampsaque, chez les marchands de nouveautés” is fictitious and typical of clandestine libertine publishing. The reference to Lampsacus—associated in antiquity with Priapus—functions as an encoded indicator of erotic content while imitating a legitimate place of publication. “Marchands de nouveautés” is a conventional false address used to obscure production and evade censorship. Such imprints are characteristic of the libertine tradition associated with Denis Diderot, Restif de la Bretonne, and Donatien Alphonse François de Sade.

Condition: Binding edges slightly rubbed; overall foxing, more prominent at the beginning and end; otherwise in very good condition.

References:
Catalogue des livres composant la bibliothèque de feu M. Auguis, 1845, no. 1128.

Catalogue de la bibliothèque de feu M. Victorien Sardou, 1910, p. 67.

Not in Gay, Bibliographie des ouvrages relatifs à l’amour, aux femmes, au marriage. Paris, 1864.