(Steinsberg, Karl Franz Guolfinger von). The 42-year-old monkey. A very painted fairy tale! From French. Volume I (of 2). 250 pp., 2 Bl. Title in red and black. With engraved title vignette. 17 x 10.5 cm. Semi-leather d. C. (stronger rubbed, corners hit, joints damaged, lower capital with flaw) with gold-embossed RSchild. Berlin (d. i. Prague, Schönfeld) 1784. Goedeke V, 349, 8 (Part I only). Hayn-Gotendorf I, 31 (named a volume II with the year "1784" and describes the print from 1786 as the second edition). – First edition of the first volume. "This sharp and spicy satyre has so far been strangely referred to as directed against Voltaire, while in reality it refers unmistakably to Joseph II, who was 42 years old at that time" (H.-G.). A monkey tells his experiences with the people; Criticism of lying virtue, bribery, fornication (with free descriptions of seductions), underestimations of German poets ("a Lessing, Leibniz, Wieland or Geßner are unknown"), stupidity and brilliance of the nobility, etc. According to Wurzbach, the Bohemian theatre poet and journalist Ritter von Steinsberg (1757-1817) is "one of the most peculiar figures from the best days of the ==References== With side blows on Prussia, which is called "Hungerland", while Austria is the "Fettland" (see in detail Bodi, Tauwetter in Vienna, p. 337). The second volume, which did not exist here, was often unknown to the bibliographers or was mistakenly regarded as "not by Steinsberg".