Deals antique PERSIAN LETTERS by MONTESQUIEU ~ 1899 ~ 3 volume set ~ Edouard de Beaumont ~ etchings ~ lovely ~ decorative ~ fine finding ~ vintage

Persian Letters (Three Volumes)
by Montesquieu; Translated by John Davidson
London: Gibbings and Company, 1899. The three volumes 7 inches x 4 1/2 inches of the translation by the Scottish poet John Davidson. Lovely ornate gilt decorated cloth hardovers ; top edge gilt bottom edge deckled; bright tight clean ; vintage owner bookplate inside each cover (see last photo) ; Vol. 1 includes frontis and one etching by Ed De Beaumont, Volume 2: frontis and three etchings, Vol. 3 frontis and two etchings. "Conveniently disguised as the correspondence of two Persian noblemen travelling in Europe, Montesquieu satirized, in an unforgivably witty style, the absurdities and abuses of the contemporary social, political, ecclesiastical and literary scene. France was publicly shocked and privately delighted -- Persian Letters (French: Lettres persanes) is a literary work, published in 1721, by Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, recounting the experiences of two fictional Persian deals noblemen, Usbek and Rica, who spend several years in France under Louis XIV and the Regency.
"Persian Letters is a classic of European literature by Baron de Montesquieu, the brilliant thinker who had a huge influence on the Enlightenment. Through the astute observations of his two fictional Persian travelers in Europe--Usbek and Rica--Montesquieu asks fundamental questions about human nature, the manners and flirtations of polite society, the structures of power, and the hypocrisy of religion-all in a witty, inventive satire that combines travel literature and the epistolary genre. Indeed, this pioneering epistolary novel appeared almost twenty years before Richardson's Pamela. "