[MERCIER, Louis Sébastien].

L'An Deux Mille Quatre Cent Quarante. Rêve s'il en fût jamais; suivi de l'homme de fer, songe.

[Paris?], n.p., 1786. 3 vols, 12mo, pp. xvi, 380, [2] index; [iv], 381, [2] index, [1] blank; [ii],312, [2] index, with engraved frontispiece to each volume; dampstain to the frontispiece of vol. 2, tear to p. xi of vol. 1, tear to corner of p. 251 of vol. 2, some browning and light foxing to vol. 3; contemporary calf, covers ruled gilt, spines decorated gilt with contrasting morocco labels; spine ends and extremities worn with some loss of leather, corners bumped, book-plate to the front pastedowns. Expanded three-volume edition of a work originally published in 1771; Negley cites two other editions (one from 1772, the other from 1775), although the preface to the present work claims that these were pirated. One of the best-known utopian novels, in which Mercier imagines that he has awoken from a seven-hundred year sleep, discovering that France has since become an enlightened world of flourishing arts and science. While the technological and political advances envisaged by Mercier are modest by the standards of modern readers - carriages remain horse-drawn and the France of 2440 is still a monarchy – the work is clearly immersed in Enlightenment values, and provides a powerful voice against the intellectual debasement associated with tyranny. Louis Sébastien Mercier (1740–1814) began his literary career as an iconoclastic dramatist, bemoaning the French preference for Classical theatre over more innovative models. An ardent Republican, Mercier remained loyal to his beliefs throughout the Empire, and died shortly after the restoration of the Bourbons.Manuel & Manuel, pp. 131–148; Versins, pp. 581–3; see Negley 772 for the first edition.

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