SADE (Donatien-Alphonse François de). Aline et Valcour, or the Philosophical Novel. Written in the Bastille a year before the French Revolution. Orné de Seize Gravures. Paris : veuve Girouard, 1795. - 8 parts in 8 volumes in-18, 131 x 77: frontispiece, xjv, 150 pp., 1 plate; frontispiece, (2 ff.), pp. (151)-315, 1 plate; frontispiece, (2 ff.), 234, 2 pp., 1 plate; frontispiece, (2 ff.), pp. (261)-503, 2 pp., 1 plate; frontispiece, 267 pp. 1 plate; frontispiece, (2 ff.), pp. (269)-573 miscalculated 575, 1 plate; frontispiece, (2 ff.), 204 pp. 1 plate; frontispiece, (2 ff.), pp. (205)-374. Marbled tan basane, ornate smooth spine, red edges, modern slipcase (period binding). First edition of this novel by letters, composed by the Marquis de Sade during his imprisonment in the Bastille between 1785 and 1788, telling two separate stories linked only by the relationship of the characters. Considered by some to be one of the finest works of eighteenth-century literature, Sade's style is consistently "moral", despite some daring situations. A copy of the C issue, with "Seize gravures" on the title. "Theoretically, there are three editions, but they come from the same print run, begun in 1791, interrupted in 1794 by the legal murder of Girouard, resumed and completed in 1795. These three editions - or rather, pseudo-editions, to be the mixture of sheets printed over the course of four years - differ from one another only in the content of the title pages and in the number of etchings, which increase from fourteen in editions A and B to sixteen in edition C" (Lély. Vie du marquis de Sade. Paris, 1989, p. 589). A choice copy, bound in 8 volumes at the time, with homogeneous titles for each part, announcing the sixteen illustrations. It includes 15 of the 16 plates required; as is almost always the case, the very rare erotic engraving in part five is missing. It is also complete with the two errata leaves to volumes 3 and 4. Bindings very well preserved, despite a slight loss at the head of volumes 6 and 8. Scattered foxing, a few light stains. Several leaves browned as usual. Volume 1: angular restoration to leaf E3. Volume 4: tear at the bottom of folio Ff6, due to a paper defect, without affecting the text. Volume 5: angular tear missing from folio G6, with damage to the fillets around the running title. Volume 6: folds to last leaf.