Relation Contenant l'Histoire de l'Academie Francoise [Lytton Strachey and Roger Senhouse's Copy]

Paris: Louis Billaine, 1672. Very Good. Paris: Chez Louis Billaine, au second pillier de la grand'Salle du Palais, à la Palme, & au grand Cesar, 1672. 12mo (15.5cm); full 19th-century parchment, black gilt-tooled spine label, binder's tiny rubberstamp "Pierson" to front pastedown; [10],617pp. (lacking final blank, otherwise collated complete with added leaf Q11 loosely laid in as usual); woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces. Parchment rather soiled, spine darkened, extensive pencil notes on front pastedown and free endpaper, else textblock free of markings. A Very Good and sound example.

Provenance: Ownership ex libris of both Lytton Strachey and his lover Roger Senhouse. Both men circulated in the Bloomsbury Group, though Senhouse, a co-owner of the publishing firm Secker & Warburg, was arguably a more peripheral figure. The two men became lovers later in life (Strachey died in 1932 at the age of 51) and their letters reveal a (consensual) sado-masochistic relationship with Strachey the "faithful Zebra" and Senhouse the "best of Monkeys."

Reference: The Letters of Lytton Strachey (2005).