GRISLY MARTYRDOMS FOR CHILDREN, WITH 42 HAND-COLORED PLATES; NO COPY IN US OR UK LIBRARIES. Oblong 8vo. [19.5 x 12 cm]. 151 pp, (1), plus engr. frontispiece, engr. title-page, and 40 engravings on 20 plates, all finished in contemporary hand-color. Bound in contemporary brown boards, delicately embossed with a pagoda design on both boards. Spine a little chipped and worn; final leaf of text creased; otherwise an excellent, fresh copy. Charming sole edition of this children’s guide to the saintly martyrs, a product of the renewed interest in religious instruction in France following the Bourbon Restoration of 1815. The title vignette (‘The Education of the Virgin Mary’) depicts a mother teaching a young girl to read; the same edifying tone is continued in the preface, which promises the young reader that “even those born in poverty, or indeed slavery, have risen, by the purity of their morals and their conduct, to the highest rungs of the civil service, the military, and the clergy.” OCLC shows five copies worldwide, none in the US. The ‘Auteur de la Bible en Estampes’ noted on the title-page is elsewhere identified as ‘Mme H**”, but we have been unable to trace her true identity.