PERSIAN LETTERS - Volume the First and Volume the Second - Privately Printed Limited Numbered Edition (No. 43/520) - complete set of 2 vols

No. 43/520 limited edition. Complete set of two volumes privately printed and hand-numbered '43' in fountain pen to both volumes. Newly translated into English with notes and memoir of the author by John Davidson. (Author of "Scaramouch in Naxos" "Perfervid," etc. ***Illustrated with seven (of nine) etchings by Charles Edward De Beaumont engraved by E. Boilvin along with a 24k gold Persian colour illuminated fly-title page to each volume. ***Please note that one etching is missing in each volume at p. 12. ***On recto of each volume's illuminated page it states 'Note - Five hundred and twenty copies printed for England and America. Each copy numbered. Type distributed. No. 43.' (with the no. 43 handwritten in fountain pen). ***Printed by the Chiswick Press: Whittingham and co., Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London. ***Vol. I: Very good in navy blue cloth-covered boards. Slight spine lean. Head and tail of spine slightly creased, nicked and rubbed. Black titles on cream red bordered paper label to spine. Spine label slightly discoloured, browned, worn, creased and rubbed and slightly chipped at edges. Top edge of text-block gilt. Fore-edge and bottom edge of text-block deckled, (untrimmed - rough-cut) as called for. Printed on thick, quality, cream laid paper. Boards slightly rubbed and marked. Edges of boards slightly rubbed. Slight crease to top of spine. Small hole to cloth of spine. Spine tight. Slight spine lean. No inscriptions. xliii-page prelims introduction by the translator John Davidson, London, dated September, 1891 plus 175 pages. 206mm x 154mm. ***Vol. II: Very good in navy blue cloth-covered boards. Head and tail of spine slightly creased, nicked and rubbed. Slight spine lean. Black titles on cream red bordered paper label to spine. Spine label browned, slightly discoloured, worn, creased and rubbed and slightly chipped at edges. Top edge of text-block gilt. Fore-edge and bottom edge of text-block deckled (untrimmed -rough-cut) as called for. Printed on thick, quality, cream laid paper. Edges of boards slightly rubbed. Boards slightly rubbed and marked. ***vii-page prelims plus 203 pages including index. 206mm x 154mm. ***'Coffee is very much used in Paris; there are a great many public houses where it may be had. In some of these they meet to gossip, in others to play at chess. There is one [The Cafe Procope, a rendezvous of the wits of the eighteenth century] where the coffee is prepared in such a way that it makes those who drink it witty; at least, there is not a single soul who on quitting the house does not believe himself four times wittier than when he entered it.' (Quote from Pages 82-83, Vol. One). ***Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (1689-1755) was a French political-philosophical Enlightenment writer. "Persian Letters" is an early epistolary novel. ***A very hard to find, private, limited, hand-numbered edition of Montesquieu: Persian Letters. Of interest to collectors of antiquarian limited editions and books printed by The Chiswick Press. ***For all our books, postage is charged at cost, allowing for packaging: any shipping rates indicated on ABE are an average only: we will reduce the P & P charge where appropriate - please contact us for postal rates for heavier books and sets etc.***.…