[INSTITUT ROYAL DES JEUNES AVEUGLES] - GUILLIÉ (Sébastien). Notice historique sur l'instruction des jeunes aveugles. Paris: printed by the Jeunes Aveugles, 1819. - In-4, 276x212: (2 ff.), 53 pp., (1 f.). Green half cloth, smooth spine, untrimmed (binding circa 1840). Very rare second edition, dedicated to the King, after that of 1817. Sébastien Guillié's Notice historique is an educational work, which opens with a historical account of the Institution des jeunes aveugles. It also includes two interesting chapters devoted to books in relief: "Des caractères en relief et de la lecture", which explores the principles of tactile reading; and "De l'imprimerie à l'usage des aveugles et des livres en relief", illustrated by an example of a page printed in black and in relief. At the end of the book, two leaflets reproduce relief printing. "With this "advertising" production, Bordeaux physician and literary scholar Sébastien Guillié, director of the Instruction des Jeunes Aveugles since 1815, offers the public a spectacular example of his work. The print, obtained in high relief, is not inked. It seems that, in the years 1819-1820, Guillié preferred a two-cylinder press to a traditional press; a process inspired by, and tangibly improved upon, the single-press cylinder built at the end of the Ancien Régime by Valentin Haüy. Each sheet consists of the front of one sheet and the back of another, laminated together to give the pages a particular thickness and rigidity. The use of a very large Latin alphabet distinguishes the text - already anaglyptic - from those printed in the codified alphabet of Louis Braille (1809-1852), perfected in 1829" (Alain Mercier, in Les 3 révolutions du livre, 2002, p. 363). Copy well preserved, despite faded spine. Soiling to leaves.