CATS, Jacob (1577-1660). Alle de Wercken, Amsterdam, 1712, 2 volumes bound in one, folio, additional engraved allegorical title, engraved plates and c. 400 emblematic illustrations, contemporary calf gilt.

CATS, Jacob (1577-1660).  Alle de Wercken ... Ridder Oudt Raadtpensionaris van Hollandt. &c. De laatste Druk; waar on het Twee-en-Tachtig Jaarig Leeven des Dichters beneffens desselfs Slaapeloose Nachten, met Printverbeeldingen sijn verrijkt: nooit voor deesen soo gedrukt. Amsterdam: "By Jan van Heekeren, Anthony Hasebroek ... [and others]", 1712. 2 volumes bound in one, folio (400 x 255mm). Half title, additional engraved allegorical title incorporating a portrait of the author, letterpress titles printed in red and black with engraved device, 2 further full-page engraved portraits of the author, 2 engraved portraits of the Dutch polymath and feminist Anna Maria van Schurman, one full-page, 5 other engraved plates, 3 of which double-page, and one full-page engraved illustration, c. 400 engraved emblematic illustrations in the text, most after Adrian van de Venne, initials and ornaments, text printed mostly in double column (half title repaired without loss, *** and Ppp[1] torn at foot without loss in the first volume; K4 torn and repaired affecting a few letters, L4 with short tear, repaired without loss, V3 torn at foot affecting a few letters, Y2, Aaa2 and H1 torn without loss in the second volume, some mainly marginal staining and spotting, a few darker spots, some leaves lightly browned). Contemporary calf gilt, the covers with blind-stamped arabesque centrepieces (rebacked some time ago preserving old spine, rubbed and scuffed with some surface flaking, later endpapers). A "collected works" of Jacob Cats was first published in 1655. The plates in this fine edition are hugely elaborate and full of unsettling ghoulish detail; the emblematic illustrations, true to form, are often just plain weird. cf. J. Bos & J. A. Gruys Cats Catalogus 6 (citing the edition of 1700); not in Brunet, Landwehr or Praz.