[Armorial binding] [Joseph-Adrien Lelarge, abbé de LIGNAC] - Lot 242

[Armorial binding] [Joseph-Adrien Lelarge, abbé de LIGNAC] Lettres à un Amériquain sur l'histoire naturelle, génerale et particulière de monsieur de Buffon. A Hambourg, 1751, 3 volumes in-12 bound in full contemporary blond calf, ornate ribbed spines, title and appendix, central arms on boards. Bound with the La Rochefoucauld coat of arms. Provenance: Bibliothèque du Château de La Roche-Guyon (wet bookplate stamp on title). A fine copy. First edition of these learned dissertations, in which 9 letters, written to an imaginary American, attack Buffon's work with violence, taking issue with his curious theory of the creation of the Earth and the innumerable errors found therein. Six further volumes were added in 1756. The typography of the title pages, imitating German printing, is curious: it incorporates a 16th-century ornamental motif, repeated in the colophon, and Gothic lettering.