MONTESQUIEU: Lettres persanes. Cologne, Pierre Marteau, 1744 - Lot 42

MONTESQUIEU: Lettres persanes. Cologne, Pierre Marteau, 1744. 3 parts bound in 1 vol. in-12 contemporary brown calf, spine ribbed and decorated, red edges (headband and corners worn, part of the title-piece missing, the last leaf of the Lettres Turques is torn with the lower quarter of the page missing, tear without missing page 166 of t.2, slight foxing, manuscript bookplate on the title). Title, 172 pp; Title and 196 pp; Title and 69 pp. This edition joins Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes with Saint-Foix's "Lettres d'une Turque à Paris", here republished under the more lapidary title of "Lettres Turques". An unclassifiable work elevated to the rank of a classic, a jewel of the Age of Enlightenment, Lettres Persanes uses a procedure found in other works of the period: a foreigner, in this case Turkish, visits Paris and maintains a correspondence with his friend back home.