Rare first French edition of a detailed and thoroughly illustrated practical handbook of the art of caricature by the English antiquarian, lexicographer and army captain Francis Grose (1731?-1791), first published in English. The plates make their first appearance in the present edition, including 9 showing caricatures not in the earlier editions. The first part has a drop-title "Principes de caricature" (pp. 1-14, with plates I-VI bound before it as the direction to the binder at the foot of p. 42 indicates), while the second has a divisional title "Essai sur la peinture comique" (pp. 15-32). The text ends with the notes on the plates, including the frontispiece (pp. 33-42). Plates VII-XXVIII follow, with the 6 folding plates (XXIII-XXVIII) containing 27 scenes, some with more than one human figure. Plates I-VI show details (caricature noses, profiles, heads, etc.) while the other illustrations show caricature portraits and scenes, often with grotesque figures.
Both the present French and the German edition, by the same three publishers, are undated, but appeared in 1800. They match in typographic style and use the same plates. Although the French is translated from the German, it appears to have been published a few months earlier, at the Leipzig bookfair for spring 1800, so it is the first edition to use the present plates.
With minor foxing, part of the foot border line of one plate very slightly shaved (just touching the toe of one figure), a couple small marginal chips or tears (not affecting the image or text) and a few creases in the folding plates, but otherwise in very good condition. The front hinge is cracked and there are a few small scuff marks, but the binding is otherwise good. A practical handbook of caricature, more extensively illustrated than any English edition. Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung LXXV (4 June 1800), col. 623; Quérard (1829) III, p. 487; WorldCat (4 copies).