LA MOTRAYE, Aubrey de.

The Hague, Chez T. Johnson & J. van Duren, 1727. Folio. Engr. front.+ (14),+ 472,+ 23 pp.+ 2 folding engr. maps,+ 29 engr. plates, of which 16 folding or doublepage; engr. front.+ (6),+ 496,+ 39,+ (blank),+ 15 pp.+ 2 folding engr. maps,+ 18 engr. plates, of which 7 folding. Titles printed in red and black and with engr. vignettes. Minor dampstain and some ink spots, larger on pp. 146-147 in part two. One map in part one defective with large loss of picture, four plates with tears and one with repair. Worn contemporary full calf, gilt spines rubbed with raised bands and red labels, red edges. Volume one defective at top of spine and with tear at lower front hinge, second volume with front board partly loose and with somewhat clumsy later repair. Two volumes. Old owner’s signature on page 352 in part two of Mlle Leclerre, and with bookplates of Hilding Pleijel. Pasted at beginning of volume one is a letter to Madame la victomte de Chabot 1838 and a pasted note in both volumes by Isabelle de Chabot dated 1846. Atabey 661. Blackmer 946. Weber 443. Bring 123. First French edition, with the rare extra appendix ”Relation en forme de factum” (15 pp.) about the printing of the work, which according to Bring lacks in all Swedish libraries. Aubrey de La Motraye spent twenty-six years travelling through northern Europe to Tartary and the Levant, beginning with a tour through Sweden in 1696, visiting Gothenburg, Skara, Trollhättan, Stockholm, Falun, Lappland etc. He was close to Charles XII of Sweden and, during his tour in Turkey, visited him at Bender. A number of the plates in this work are signed by Hogarth; they illustrate antiquities and genre scenes of Swedish and Turkish life, with dancing dervishes and harems. His travel accunt was first printed in English in London in 1723. This French edition contains four plates which do not appear in the English edition. His travels in Germany, Russia, Poland etc., was published in a separate work in 1732. The first Swedish translation was published by Hugo Hultenberg in 1918.From the library of Isabella Charlotte de Rohan, vicomte de Chabot (1784-1868). She was an Irish aristocrat and diarist, born Isabella Charlotte FitzGerald. She married Louis William de Rohan-Chabot an exiled french officer living in London. After many adventures the couple returned to France and Paris after the defeat of Napoleon. There she took her duties as a lady-in-waiting to the duchesse d'Orléans and living at the Château de Villiers and the Palais-Royal.