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This is three volumes of the set, Vols. IV, VII and VIII. They are 12 mos measuring 4? x 7?, bound in what appears to be the original leather with five raised bands to the spine. The are in fair condition. Boards detached or detaching, leather quite scuffed and some rubbing to the corners, spine tips chipped, spines cracking. Interior end papers have been detached with the boards and are chipped as a result, otherwise the contents are clean and unmarked. Fragile but readable as is, a good candidate for rebinding, and a fascinating look at Europe and the French Court during the last half of the 17th century from someone ? Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy was an eight-volume collection of fictional letters claiming to have been written by an Ottoman spy named "Mahmut the Arabian",in the French court of Louis XIV. The letters cover the period of 1637 to 1682 in France, from the last years of the Regency of Anne of Austria and Cardinal Richelieu through the long reign of Louis XIV and his minister Cardinal Mazarin. The letters form a rambling journal of gossip on current politics and satire on society.Mahmut sends reports from Paris to Constantinople on politics and current events in France, but corresponds privately on other subjects including religion, and adds stories and anecdotes for diversion. His observations range from those on political figures such as Richelieu and Mazarin to speculations on the status of women, advice about state policy, and major interventions in controversies about religious doctrine and their consequences. His political position in the letters changes from that of liberal Catholic to that of a rationalistic Deist.It is agreed that the first volume of this work was written by Giovanni Paolo Marana (1642-1693), a Genoese political refugee to the French court of Louis XIV. The remaining seven volumes appeared first in English between 1691 and 1694, prefaced with a letter claiming that they were translated from a discovered Italian manuscript. There has long been a controversy as to the authorship of the volumes subsequent to Marana's first. They have been attributed to many writers, most notably Robert Midgley and William Bradshaw who produced the English translation. However, given the similarities between the letters, and the stylistic coherence of the whole series, the likeliest author is Marana himself.
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