Engraved Portrait of Chevalier d’Éon, Early Gender Nonconformity in Popular Print: "The New Wonderful Magazine," Vol. II, 1854 

Chevalier d'Eon

Book

[Cross Dressing] [Chevalier d'Eon] Davidson, G. H. The New Wonderful Magazine, Vol. II, includes a Victorian illustrated account of Chevalier d’Éon, the eighteenth century French diplomat, soldier, and spy whose public life became a recurring point of reference in the history of gender nonconformity in Europe. Issued within a miscellany devoted to remarkable characters, strange histories, and marvel literature, the volume shows how nineteenth century popular print converted d’Éon’s earlier political and social notoriety into commercial reading matter, with gender classification itself staged as visible spectacle. Its treatment of d’Éon belongs to a broader culture of illustrated biography in which bodily ambiguity, celebrity, and curiosity were circulated together for a mass audience.

Davidson, G. H. The New Wonderful Magazine: Consisting of a Carefully Selected Collection of Remarkable Trials, Biographies of Wonderful or Extraordinary Characters, Curious Histories and Adventures, Phenomena in Nature, the Wonders of Art. Vol. II. London: G. H. Davidson, 1854. Illustrated volume of 756 pages in publisher’s canvas binding, measuring 9 x 6 x 3 inches. The book gathers short biographies, curious histories, and accounts of extraordinary subjects, illustrated with steel plate portraits, engraved scenes, and woodcuts. Its image of Chevalier d’Éon presents the figure half in women’s dress and half in men’s dress, using split costume as the central visual device and making dual gender presentation the basis of the composition. Elsewhere, the volume follows the pictorial language of mid nineteenth century popular miscellanies, pairing portraiture with dramatic narrative illustration across a broad range of biographical and anecdotal material.

D’Éon’s continued circulation in nineteenth century print reflects the persistence of an eighteenth century life that moved through diplomatic, military, and courtly worlds while becoming publicly associated with both male and female social roles at different stages. By 1777, Louis XVI had officially recognized d’Éon as female, and later writers repeatedly returned to that history in discussions of gender variance, notoriety, and embodiment. In this 1854 volume, the subject appears not as private biography alone but as illustrated public curiosity, showing how Victorian print culture repackaged earlier lives that unsettled binary gender norms for popular consumption. Moderate wear and rubbing to binding with expected age toning; text and illustrations complete and legible. A well preserved Victorian printing that carries one of the nineteenth century’s most recognizable popular images of Chevalier d’Éon.

Item #23104

Price: $1,850.00