Recueil d'enigmes.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Language:

French

Genre:

codices (bound manuscripts)

poems

riddles (documents)

satires (literary genre)

sonnets

Manuscripts, French.

Manuscripts, European.

Penn Provenance:

Possible early ownership inscription: Thomasset (f. iii recto, 1r).

Sold by Justin Croft (Faversham, England) and Simon Beattie (Chesham, England), their joint catalog More Manuscripts (2011), no. 43.

Physical Description:

128 leaves : paper ; 189 x 132 (142-161 x 92-100) mm bound to 196 x 140 mm

Production:

[Paris?, France], [1790?]

Language Note:

French.

Summary:

Collection of over 400 riddles in verse (numbered up to 345), with answers, which are usually objects but occasionally abstract nouns, provided. The riddles alternate between sonnet form and shorter verses for much of the volume, but some longer riddles appear toward the end. The pastedowns and endleaves (f. i-iii, 1-4, 124-125) contain epigrams, proverbs, satirical material, and an imaginary political book list (Biblioteque moderne ou notice abregée des nouvelles brochures de l'usage du sceau, f. i verso).

Notes:

Ms. codex.

Title from caption title (f. 1r).

Foliation: Paper, 128; [i-iii, 1-125]; modern foliation in pencil, lower right recto.

Layout: Written in 18-25 lines; text block framed with double ink lines and riddles separated by double lines; answers to riddles written vertically outside the left edge of the text block.

Script: Written in cursive script by a single hand.

Binding: Contemporary (late 18th-century) mottled calf, gilt spine with title Enigm.

Origin: Written in France, probably Paris, ca. 1790 (satirical poem on the Assemblée nationale constituante, founded June 1789, f. i recto; riddle with the answer l'année 1790, f. 114r).

Local Notes:

Marilyn Kramer Weitzman Fund.

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 1608

OCLC:

765975681