PARDOE, Julia; BARTLETT, William Henry (ill.). Les Beautés du Bosphore, par Miss Pardoe, Auteur de “La Cité du Sultan”, orné d’une suite de vues de Constantinople et de ses environs, d’après les dessins originaux de W.H. Bartlett. Traduit de l’anglais par L. De Bauclas.
London: George Virtue, 1838.
£ 850
FIRST FRENCH EDITION. 4to (28 x 22 cm) [2] 164 [2]. Title page, engraved portrait of the author with facsimile signature, engraved title page (in English); 79 illustrated plates. Latin type, in French. Red half-morocco binding; gilt decoration and title on spine; corners slightly worn. Browning and foxing throughout. Overall a very good copy.
Julia Pardoe (1804 – 1862), was an English poet, novelist, historian and traveller. She was amongst one the first women to describe Turkey, where she travelled with her father, Commander Thomas Pardoe, in 1836. Her most popular work is The City of the Sultan and Domestic Manners of the Turks (1837), which presented the Turkish upper class with sympathy and humanity. She is also known today for her historical books on the French 16th and 17th-century courts. These included Louis the Fourteenth and the Court of France in the Seventeenth Century (1847), The Court and Reign of Francis the First, King of France (1849), and The Life of Marie de Medicis, Queen and Regent of France (1852).