Ballet.- Noverre (Jean Georges) Lettres sur la Danse, et sur les Ballets, first edition, second issue, engraved coat-of-arms at head of dedication, tear to title, dedication and first leaf of text (title neatly & unobtrusively repaired), contemporary tan calf, gilt, spine gilt, a little rubbed and scuffed, [Beaumont p.134; Derra de Moroda 1965; Niles & Leslie p.389; cf.Magriel p.115, Stuttgart issue], Lyons, Aimé Delaroche, 1760; and 5 odd vol. of libretti for Lully's operas & ballets, 8vo & 12mo (6)

⁂ Revolutionary treatise on the theory of dance by the leading authority of the period. Noverre was ballet-master to Frederick the Great, Maria Teresa and Marie Antoinette at varying times, founded the Stuttgart Ballet at the court of the Duke of Württemberg, counted Voltaire and Mozart amongst his friends, and is regarded as the father of modern ballet. There are two issues of the work: this and another with a Stuttgart imprint which is usually considered to be the first issue.

"This work has no equal in the whole of the literature devoted to the Dance, and no book has exerted so incalculable an influence for good on the manner of production of ballets and dances." Beaumont