az- A Journey Around My Room (Hesperus Classics): Xavier de Maistre

int thing here is that I looked at this, for the first time as far as I recall, on Sunday a week ago. occasioned by a web order for it. and, today, opening to beginning of The Library at Night: Alberto Manguel (bcs packing it; and which I've been less than drawn to ~ too narrow, resembling that pretty hardcover book I had & gave to dc that was a ruminative retelling re Art, I think Rick at Ebbco liked it a lot, and it may be v good, but the narrowness I realized was off-putting, seemed to make the content also too-precious~ and books on books tend to be that for me already), this:
"I live among ever-increasing bookshelves whose limits begin to blur or coincide with the house itself. The title of this book should have been Voyage around My Room. Regrettably, over two centuries ago, the notorious Xavier de Maistre got there first."

Book Description:
Xavier de Maistre, a 27-year-old Frenchman was imprisoned in his room for six weeks, having been arrested in Turin after a duel, in the Spring of 1790. But with only a butler and a dog for company only! a dog and a human person!, Xavier de Maistre managed to fill his time by embarking on a journey around his bedroom, later really? really later? writing an account of what he had seen. Whether venturing from his bed to his sofa, or even to his mirror, he wears his “traveling outfit”—his favorite pink and blue pajamas. Out of his forced reclusion comes a captivating fantasy. This edition also contains de Maistre’s A Nocturnal Expedition around My Room. Xavier de Maistre was a military man, who supplemented his army career with short works of fiction.

Washington Post Book World:
... As de Maistre embarks on "the long journey we still have to make if we are ever to reach my desk"I do like that. it's funny, he reflects on the blissfulness of lying warm under the duvet or seated before an evening fire...
A Journey Around My Room and A Nocturnal Expedition Around My Room may seem mere sports, literary jeux d'esprit. And yet their ancestors and progeny are many: Milton's Satan boldly announced that "the mind is its own place, and in itself/ Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n"Richard II people the room with his thoughts ... The English publisher Hesperus, which specializes in bringing out novella-length masterworks from around the world, deserves plaudits plaudits?* I know about laud ~ laudatory. for adding these two little masterpieces to our reading lists. 2005, The Washington Post
*hmm: laudes from Latin, plural of laud-, laus praise
Latin plaudite applaud, plural imperative of plaudere to applaud
.