Marsella

1764 · ref. 3968 — Paris Duchesne Panckoucke Prault 1764. 1st Edition . Soft cover. . ~ ~ NOTE: THE PRICE OF THIS BOOK IS CURRENTLY REDUCED! ~ ~ . Two volumes. Small octavo. Pp. xii 144; 155 1. Both half-titles with the title "Histoire de Méhémet II Empereur Ottoman enrichie de Lettres traduites du Grec et de l'Arabe" are present. Head- and tail-pieces decorative initials; shoulder notes. Ownership signature to each title. Uniformly bound in contemporary plain paper wrappers frayed brown paper spines one with remnants of old paper strengthening; dog eared bit soiled in places. Still a charming unsophisticated set preserved in the original state. ~ FIRST EDITION. Exceedingly scarce in the original state. A series of fictitious letters written by the orientalist Belin de Monterzi. Monterzi's book his claims to historical veracity notwithstanding was fiction disguised as history. It was an epistolary exchange between Byzantine princesses the Sultan and his officers. Hardened warriors though they were in Monterzi's portraits they had a tender heart for the nobel Byzantine ladies who did not resist their gallantries. One of them was Irene the only surviving member of an illustrious Byzantine family. When Constantinople fell some of its most highly prized spoils were its maidens valued for their beauty and nobility. And so she was presented to the Sultan who became deeply enamoured of her. In her tragic story there are themes of beauty desire and violence placed in an early oriental setting. Buturovic Women in the Ottoman Balkans: Gender Culture and History. See also Joseph Marie Quérard: La France littéraire Paris 1827. Barbier II 724; Langlumé Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes 10453; Reboul Anonymes pseudonymes et supercheris litteraires 28; Quérard La France littéraire ou Dictionnaire bibliographique p. 259; Conlon Le siècle des Lumières: bibliographie chronologique Volume 29 64:551. I-5 IN Paris, Duchesne, Panckoucke, Prault paperback