Author: BRUYS (François):
Title: The Art of Knowing Women: Or, The Female Sex Dissected, in a faithful Representation of their Virtues and Vices, under the following Heads, Viz. I. General Ideas of Women. II. Of their Education. III. Of their Self-Love. IV. Of the Life they Chuse. V. Of their Religion and Devotion. VI. Of Love and Jealousy. Vii. Of Continence and Chastity. Viii. Of Marriage. IX. Of their Wit and Learning. X. Of their keeping Secrets. XI. Of Beauty, Dress, and Fashions. XII. Of Falshood and Deceit. XIII. Of Calumny and Detraction. XIV. Of Flattery and Dissimulation. XV. Of Friendship and Hatred. XVI. Of Envy and Malice. XVII. Of Covetousness and Prodigality. XVIII. Of Pride and Ostentation. XIX. Of Rage: Or, Passion. XX. A Dissertation concerning Adultery, and a learned Treatise on Divorce. Written in French, by the Chevalier Plante-Amour, Made English from the French Original, with Improvements, by Mr. Macky. The Second Edition.
Description: London: Printed for E. Curll..., and T. Payne..., 1732. 12mo, 161 x 94 mms., pp. [viv],244 [245 - 248 adverts for Curll and Payne imprints], engraved frontispiece, contemporary sheepskin, rebacked with raised bands between gilt rules, red morocco label. A very good copy. François Bruys (1708-1738) was only 22 when he published this satire, L'Art de Connoi^tre les Femmes, avec une Dissertation sur l'Adultere, in 1730. In the same year, this translation by Macky first appeared. This is the second of only two editions of Macky's rendering. The ESTC gives no author attribution in their entry for this second edition, but they do give an attribution for the first edition of the Macky translation, noting that the "Advertisement by the translator" is "signed: Spring Macky, i.e. John Macky". But Spring Macky is not John Macky. Spring is John Macky's son. Further, John Macky could not possibly have been the translator, as he died in 1726, several years before this work was written in its original French. The year after this second edition of The Art of Knowing Women appeared, Spring Macky would publish his memoirs of his father, with an emphasis on his famous career as a spy: Memoirs of the Secret Services of John Macky (1733). ESTC T117267 locates only two copies of this 1732 edition of Art of Knowing Women in the UK (BL and City of London Polytechnic); one copy in the BN in Paris; and ten in North American libraries, but one of the ten (the copy at Miami University) is imperfect, as is the BN's. The first edition of 1730 has no publisher or imprint on the title-page and does not have the frontispiece. Felicity A. Nussbaum: The Brink of All We Hate: English Satires on Women, 1660-1750 (2014), p. 178.

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