Transsexual fiction

[BELLE-ISLE, Marquis de, attributed to.]  Semelion, histoire veritable. [n.p.] [c.1700].

2 parts in one vol., 4to (230 × 180 m.), pp. [124], [2] (blank); [136]. Manuscript on paper, neat and legible throughout, occasional erasures and alterations in the same hand. Occasional minor waterstains. Contemporary calf, gilt panelled spine, red edges, green silk marker. An excellent contemporary manuscript copy.   

A remarkable contemporary manuscript of a bizarre erotic fiction. Semelion was first printed in 1700 (perhaps in Holland) under a false “Constantinople” imprint but at the same time circulated clandestinely in manuscript. This is evidently one of those manuscript copies. It tells the story of the adolescent Semelion (he is 14 at the opening) of a noble Béarnaise family at the time of the wars of religion and of the siege of Paris (1594). He meets a magician or “philosophe” who introduces him to alchemy and to an elixir of transformation allowing him to change his sex at will. Semilion samples the elixir in order to enter a convent in which his young lover is enclosed. Once inside, under the name of Mademoiselle de Salies, Semelion soon becomes his/her lover’s bedfellow. From here on the narrative becomes an extraordinary series of libertine experiments in which the hero tries a number of male and female sexual combinations, occasioning some  piercing insights into contemporary attitudes to friendhip, love, sex, power and gender. Since Semelion changes sex according to circumstance and point of view (even within  a single sentence) this is a complex and audacious narrative. In the second part the action transfers from France to Italy and ultimately to the seraglio at Constantinople. The story thus represents an early example of the roman de seraglio, which became ubiquitious later in the century.

An initial comparison of this manuscript with two early printed examples (1700 and 1722) reveals quite substantial variances of vocabulary and sentence structure, confirming that this it is not a mere copy of a printed text, but a parallel version probably copied from another manuscript in circulation. The work has been attributed to the Marquis de Belle-Isle, an unspecified member of the Fouquet family, but the basis for this remains unclear.

Printed text: Dufrenoy II, 112; Gay, III, 1093; Jones, French prose fiction 1700-1750, 2.

Price: SOLD