Chevalier D'Eon Monograph Inscribed by Author, Examines Her Achievements a Dragoon Captain, Diplomat, and Intelligence Operative

Chevalier D'Eon Octave Homberg

Ephemera and pamphlets

[Transgender][LGBTQ] Homberg, Octave. La Carrière Militaire du Chevalier d’Éon (1900) examines the military and diplomatic career of Charles Geneviève Louis Auguste André Timothée d’Éon de Beaumont, the eighteenth century soldier, diplomat, and intelligence agent who later lived publicly as a woman and became one of the most widely discussed gender nonconforming figures in European history. Chevalier d’Éon served as a dragoon officer and diplomatic envoy under Louis XV and participated in the secret intelligence network known as the Secret du Roi. By the late eighteenth century d’Éon’s gender identity became the subject of widespread public fascination in France and Britain, where wagering on the diplomat’s sex became a matter of public speculation and legal dispute.

Homberg, Octave. La Carrière Militaire du Chevalier d’Éon d’après des documents inédits. Paris and Nancy: Berger Levrault & Cie, 1900. First edition. Inscribed by the author on the half title. Illustrated with a chromolithographic frontispiece depicting d’Éon in uniform after an eighteenth century print by Roman de Montfort. The study draws upon previously unpublished diplomatic and military records to reconstruct d’Éon’s career as a dragoon captain, diplomat, and intelligence operative serving the French crown in Russia and Britain. Published at a time when scholarly engagement with gender variance remained rare, the book represents an early historical attempt to treat d’Éon as a significant political and military figure rather than as a medical curiosity. Original wrappers show significant edge loss with the front cover detached; interior pages complete with moderate toning and the inscription clear and legible. Overall fair to good condition. The volume preserves early modern documentary research into one of the most famous gender nonconforming figures of European diplomatic history.

Item #22345

Price: $2,400.00