Nugae difficiles. Supplément aux Amusements philologiques de G. Peignot; par R. Chalon

8vo.

There are two copies in this collection. The present has 8 extra pages and is ending on p. 34. It is bound in half dark blue calf over marbled boards, together with:

• A. Dinaux, A Monsieur Rénier Chalon, président de la Société des Bibliophiles de Mons. [Valenciennes, 20 September 1844], pp.6 (see Bib# 8921741), a reply to Nugae difficiles.
• R. Chalon, Les opuscula de Jean Despiennes. Lettre à M. le Président de la Société de Hainaut. Pp. 4 [Offprint of the Bulletin du bibliophile belge, XVI (1860), pp. 201-204] (see Bib# 8921724).
• Prospectus. Brussels, Imprimerie de M. Hayez, pp. 3. A prospectus for the Bulletin du bibliophile belge.

Work by historian and bibliophile Renier Chalon (1802-1889), the mastermind behind the Fortsas Bibliohoax (1840). This selection of notulae on eccentric publications not in Peignot’s Amusements philologiques (3rd ed., Dijon, 1842) – anagrams, chronograms, acrostics, etc. – may bear scrutiny for invented titles. See F. de Cattalaÿ & C. Sorgeloos, Renier Chalon alias Fortsas. Un érudit malicieux au mitan du XIXe siècle. Morlanwelz, 2008, pp. 84-85, citing only the periodical appearances of the Nugae in 1845-1846. Chalon originally intended an extended account of eccentric authors and texts, modelled on Nodier’s Bibliographie des fous, to be called Bedlam littéraire; see de Callataÿ & Sorgeloos, pp. 88-89.

Click here to view the Johns Hopkins University catalog record.