DUPUIS (Amable-Joseph). L'Artiste patriote, ou La Vente des biens nationaux, comédie, en cinq actes et en vers, par M. Dupuis de Bourg-en-Bresse. First performed in Paris on August 1st, the third year of liberty. Paris, Gueffier, & chez l'auteur [Imprimerie de Froullé], 1791, in-8, old-red morocco, smooth spine decorated with gilded garlands and lyres, green title page, framed in triple gilded fillet with lyres and urns on the boards, figure JD in a beautiful concentric frame pushed to the center of the boards, with a beautiful gilded palette and easel motif below, gilded cross-hatching on the edges, gilded edges, gilded cross-hatching framed on the inside covers, endpapers lined with azure paper (rel. Directoir). Unique edition of this "patriotic" play, of which the author agrees: "If this play had been performed some time after the storming of the Bastille, the whole of Paris would have rushed to see it performed. In those days, all that was needed to attract the public in droves to the show was to talk to them in a play about patriotism and liberty: but today it's quite different, the most excellent work would not attract them, if it were written in the principles of the Constitution." Wet stamp and handwritten bookplate of a notary Thibault, dated 1858. A fine copy. (Some light spotting.)