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Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat (1689-1755) Lettres Persanes.
Cologne [i.e. Amsterdam]: Pierre Marteau [i.e. Susanne de Caux, widow of Jacques Desbordes], 1721.
One of eight different editions dated 1721; 12mo, two parts bound as one, first title page printed in black only, the second part without separate title page (nothing lacking in the collation and no obvious indication that it was ever present); pagination as described by Tchemerzine-Scheler IV 920b: 172; [1], 187 pp.; a second edition with the same imprint and the same sphere title woodcut, but with a new note on the title stipulating that the text had been "revue, corrigée, diminuée et augmentée par l'auteur," was also printed in 1721; text contains 150 letters; bound in full contemporary sponge-decorated calf, gilt spine, joints rubbed, leather losses to corners; ex libris New York millionaire Ross Ambler Curran (1879-1940), with armorial bookplate inside front board, 6 1/2 x 3 1/2 in.
Published anonymously with false imprints, and reprinted multiple times in 1721, Montesquieu has left a confusing legacy to bibliographers and cataloguers with his Lettres Persanes. The text itself is written as a series of letters between two Persian noblemen spending time in Paris. As outside observers, they express opinions on virtually every aspect of French Enlightenment culture.
For more on the many editions bearing the imprint date 1721, see: Tchemerzine-Scheler's Bibliographie d'Editions Originales et Rares d'Auteurs Français, vol. IV , page 920b; not in Rochebilière's Bibliographie des Editions Originales d'Auteurs Français; perhaps overlooked by Dangeau in his Montesquieu: Bibliographie de ses Oeuvres; [and] Jules Le Petit's Bibliographie des Principales Editions Originales.
