THE ORDER OF THE GARTER AND THE PREDATIONS OF EDWARD III; NO COMPLETE COPY IN US LIBRARIES. 12mo [13.5 x 8 cm]. (16), 175 pp, (1); (2), 160 pp, (2), including divisional title-page. Bound in 18th century calf with gilt trim (very worn, with some loss to spine); contents very good. Extremely rare second edition (first, also 1682) of this French ‘historical novel’ invoking the legend of Catherine Grandison, Countess of Salisbury (ca. 1304-1349) and her role in the founding of the Order of the Garter [Ordre de la Jaretière] by her sometime rapist Edward III (r. 1327-1377). This particular legend was cemented in the 14th century through exclusively French chronicles, notably the Vrayes Chroniques ("True Chronicles") of Jean le Bel and the Chroniques of Jean Froissart. D’Argences’ work was in fact translated just a year later into English (ESTC R29594), and according to Hazlitt, La Comtesse de Salisbury also formed the basis of John Bancroft’s Restoration tragedy Edward the Third, with the Fall of Mortimer, Earl of March (1691). D’Argences’ work is pseudo-epistolary, interspersing narrative prose with imagined correspondence between Kind Edward III and his various love interests including the Countess of Salisbury and the Countess of Stafford. Wikipedia gives a reasonable summary of the original legend: “According to Jean le Bel, King Edward III was so enamored of the countess that in 1341 he raped her and according to the True Chronicles of Jean le Bel "left her there unconscious, bleeding from her nose, mouth, and elsewhere", after having relieved a Scottish siege on Wark Castle, where she lived, while her husband was out of the country. In around 1348, the Order of the Garter was founded by Edward III and it is recorded by Jean Froissart that he did so after an incident at a ball when the "Countess of Salisbury" dropped a garter and the king picked it up. It is assumed that Froissart is referring either to Catherine or to his daughter-in-law, Joan of Kent.” The motto which appears on the arms of subsequent English monarchs – “Honi soit qui mal y pense” – refers to the gallant words of the king when admonishing the courtiers who snickered at the fallen garter [“shame on whoever thinks badly of it”]. The attribution of the present novel to a Norman nobleman, Tanneguy Joseph Cauvin d’Argences, seems to be due mainly to Barbier. The English translation, The Countess of Salisbury, or, The most noble Order of the Garter, is relatively rare (ESTC showing 6 US copies) and was completed by a hack-translator, Ferrand Spence. The first edition was printed by Barbin in Paris in 1682, whose privilege is reprinted here along with the note that he has transferred the rights to the Lyon publisher Amaulry. We have located just one copy of either edition in US libraries, at Boston College (but, vol. 2 only!). * cf Letellier, The English Novel, 1660-1700: An Annotated Bibliography, p. 285; and Hazlitt, A Manual for the Collector and Amateur of old English Plays, p. 71.