8vo. Volume I: lxvi, 402 pp., 2 steel engravings of which 1 is a frontispiece portrait / Volume II: 450 pp., steel engraved frontispiece portrait / Volume II: 471 pp., steel engraved frontispiece portrait, contemporary full calf, rubbed round edges, gilt decorated rubbed and repaired spines, marbled end paper & edges, appendices, index, bookplate of John Grant Morris verso front cover, set in general very good condition, Richard Bentley, London, second revised edition, 1837.

Synopsis

Lady Montagu was one of the first women traveller in the Middle East. Her husband was England’s ambassador to Turkey. Her letters admired by Johnson,Gibbon, Walpole and Voltaire were addressed to prominent literary and aristocratic figures at the time. In her various letters she methodically noted information on the cities she visited, emphasised their historical sites and religious institutions. These letters were written to persons of distinction, men of letters in different parts of Europe, which contain among other curious relations, accounts of the policy and manners of the Turks, drawn from sources that have been inaccessible to other travellers.