A BEAUTIFUL PRODUCTION BY CHARLOTTE GUILLARD (ALONE). 8vo. [16 x 10.3 cm]. (24) pp [including AA12, blank], 363 ff, [1 terminal blank]. With a total of 14 beautiful, strikingly large cribblé woodcut initials in text, as well as dozens of smaller examples. Bound in early 18th century vellum with earlier gilt title-label pasted onto spine. An excellent, fresh copy of a magnificently-printed work. Rare edition of Denis the Carthusian’s commentaries on the Pauline Epistles, as printed by the offices of Charlotte Guillard (ca. 1485-1557). While women had been printing books since the 1470s, Charlotte Guillard ranks as “the first woman printer of importance” (McMurtrie). Among her female colleagues, Guillard's corpus stands out especially for works such as the present one – printed in a typographically complex format, and above all in Latin, which very few women could read at the time (and hence, proof the printer's sheets). "Charlotte Guillard, spent, by her account, fifty years as a printer. After sixteen years married to the printer Berthold Rembolt, she managed his business from 1518 until 1520 when she remarried Claude Chevallon... when Chevallon died in 1537, Guillard took over the business, managing it for twenty years until her death in 1557... Several works she published contained praise of her expertise and the accuracy of her publications" (Susan Broomhall, Women and the Book Trade in Sixteenth Century France, p. 55). Unlike many of Guillard's other projects, the present work bears no evidence of the involvement of her male colleagues (who are often credited in her colophons). On the other hand, the text does suggest a masterful hand at work as compositor, with the large woodcut initials beautifully punctuating the clear typeface. This is the first edition of this text to appear under Charlotte Guillard’s imprint alone; earlier editions had been shared with Jean Foucher, Jean Petit, Jean Loys, and Jean de Roigny. Of this 1542 edition, OCLC shows a handful of copies worldwide, but none in US libraries; the USTC agrees. * Pettegree, French Vernacular Books #65232; USTC 140456; Adams I, D-597; and cf also Beech, "Charlotte Guillard: A Sixteenth-Century Business Woman," Renaissance Quarterly, XXXVI (1983), pp. 354-367.