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Uncommon first separate edition. This interstellar tale narrates the journey of giants from Sirius and Saturn to Earth and their derision at mankind's wars and pretensions. Widely recognised as the earliest instance of aliens visiting Earth in European fiction, it "inaugurated a tradition of superior aliens who come to lecture humans about the need to improve themselves" (Westfahl, p. 17). Composed before Zadig and Candide, this was Voltaire's first work of imaginative prose fiction and a model for his future writings in the genre. As the eponymous hero's name Micromégas (small-large) suggests, "The story's premise is based on a concept of the relativity of things, not only in physical size but also in moral and intellectual qualities... Our pride and arrogance might be disproportionate to our physical size, but our intelligence and our knowledge of nature, which seems limited by comparison to those of the interplanetary travellers, does not necessarily mean that we are in those respect defective" (Braun, p. 197-8). The current consensus is that the work was composed in 1738-9 and revised around 1750. In February 1751, Voltaire sent the manuscript to the Parisian publisher Lambert for inclusion in the eleven volumes of his complete works, published between April and May. The tale was printed but quickly withdrawn from the edition due to mocking comments towards the scientist Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle. According to the Voltaire Foundation, a few copies of this suppressed first printing of Micromégas did circulate. Other scholars argue that a surreptitious edition was also published by the Parisian publisher Grangé in 1751, from the original manuscript which he probably obtained from Lambert. None of these 1751 printings survive, their existence being inferred from contemporary correspondence. The present edition, traditionally dated to 1752, is one of three published in that year, the only one to include an engraved title page, and widely considered the earliest of them. The place of publication, rather than London as stated, is sometimes identified as France or Germany. The edition was described by Bengesco in the 1880s as the "édition princeps"; more recently, Fontius and Smith declared it "the oldest authorised edition" (see Smith, p. 79). The Bibliotheque Nationale de France currently describes it as "Édition princeps probablement faite à Paris par M. Lambert". The binding was executed by the Parisian Marcellin Lortic (1852-1928). Marcellin had succeeded to his father's famous bookbindery in 1884, initially running the business with his brother and eventually alone from 1891. READ MORE Duodecimo (144 x 82 mm), bound in sixes. Early 20th-century red crushed morocco by M. Lortic, spine with raised bands, compartments with gilt lettering and floral tools, elaborate frame of gilt fillets, flowers, and leaves to covers, board edges and turn-ins tooled in gilt, green silk doublures and free endpapers, additional set of marbled endpapers, edges gilt and marbled, green, red, and yellow silk bookmarker. Copper engraved frontispiece, woodcut headpiece. Occasional pencil emphases in margins. Light foxing to initial and final leaves, otherwise a fine copy, handsomely bound. Bengesco 1429; Bleiler 2271. Theodore E. D. Braun, "Micromégas: Voltaire's Interstellar Conte, a Model for the Future", in Terry Pratt & David McCallam, eds, The Enterprise of Enlightenment, 2004; Gary Westfahl, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction.