72 pages, plus 6 beautiful full page, coloured illustrations. Decorative spine and front board. The latter has a gilt title and geometrical designs both within gilt borders. There is an ownership signature on the front end paper and ownership stamp on the half title page, both discrete; the back cover has two small stains, head and tail and the back paste down has lost the thin vertical strip running along the outer edge and leaving the edge cloth slightly ragged. FDor me none of this detracts from is a lovely copy. "Aucassin et Nicolette (12th or 13th century) is an anonymous medieval French fictional story. It is the unique example of a chantefable, literally, a "sung story", a combination of prose and verse (similar to a prosimetrum). he work probably dates from the late 12th or early 13th century, and is known from only one surviving manuscript, discovered in 1752 by medievalist Jean-Baptiste de La Curne de Sainte-Palaye (BnF, Fonds Français 2168). Stylistically, the chantefable combines elements of many Old French genres, such as the chanson de geste (e.g., The Song of Roland), lyric poems, and courtly novels - iterary forms already well-establishe - by the 12th century. Aucassin et Nicolette is the only known chantefable, the term itself having been derived from the story's concluding lines: "No cantefable prent fin" ("Our chantefable is drawing to a close"). (Wikipedia)