Voyage Litteraire de la Grece, ou Lettres sur les Grecs, Anciens et Modernes...




GREECE - Literary Voyage
. Voyage Litteraire de la Grèce, ou Lettres sur les Grecs anciens et modernes, avec un parallèle de leurs moeurs. By Pierre-Augustin Guys. Two volumes. xvi, 420; iv, 244 pp. 12mo., 160 x 95 mm, bound in French contemporary beige half calf, light brown and pale green spine labels. Paris: chez la veuve Duchesne, 1771.

Scarce First Edition of this unusual "literary" travel book to Greece, Turkey, and Italy by Pierre-Augustin Guys (1720-1799), physican of Lyons and member of the Academy of Sciences and Belles-Lettres of Marseille. "He may be said to have been the first folklorist who directed his attention to the Orient. His work is written in such an agreeable style, his observations so delicate and his comparisons so subtle that it makes excellent reading even today" (Iorga, as quoted in Cox).

"Guys had spent more than 30 years in the Levant engaged in commercial pursuits, having been sent in 1739 to the business house of his uncles in Constantinople. His literary and antiquarian studies led him to the conclusion that the modern Greeks were direct descendants of the ancients, and his book is full of comparisons between the ancient and modern Greeks on every conceivable subject. It is in the form of letters. This successful and popular book played an important part in developing philhellenic sentiments in France" (Leonora Navari, Blackmer Catalogue). Half-title of volume I slightly spotted, otherwise in fine state.

Cox I, 231. Cf. Blackmer 769 (third edition).

Item nr. 166953
Price: $1,500.00

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