L'introduction au traité de la conformite des merueilles anciennes auec les modernes, Ou, Traite preparatif à l'Apologie pour Herodote / L'argument est pris de l'Apologie pour Herodote, composee en latin par Henri Estiene, & est ici continué par luy-mesme. [Geneva]: [H. Stephanus], l'an M.D.LXVI, au mois de Nouembre. *-2*8 a-z8 A-N8. 8vo (160 x 100 mm). Full green morocco, gilt dentelles, by Duru & Chambolle, 1862. Light stain to lower margin of z7; faint annotation to F4, else fine.

First edition, second issue of “Henri Estienne’s most popular vernacular work, one of the monuments of 16th-century French prose, and a masterpiece of the satirical genre” (Schreiber). Designed as a defense of Herodotus, the work was a thinly veiled attack on Roman Catholicism and the strictures of 16th century societal ethics. Just before its publication, “the Geneva Council ordered Estienne to alter certain passages which were found objectionable. The required changes were immediately effected, by means of cancels, in all copies in stock, as well as in those copies which could be recalled from Lyon, where an initial shipment had been made; however, it was too late to retrieve a handful of these copies, which had already been sold. The result is that two issues of the first edition are known, both dated November 1566 on the title-page, and both with 572 numbered pages; but the second issue contains 28 cancels (i.e. 56 pages) with alterations of the original, or suppressed, version. As is to be expected, copies of the first, suppressed, issue … are of the greatest rarity" (Schreiber). Renouard 126-8; Schreiber 161.