PARIVAL, Jean-Nicolas de. Les Délices de la Hollande, contenant une description exacte du païs, des Moeurs & des Coutumes des Habitans: avec un abrégé historique depuis l’établissement de la République jusqu’au-del de la paix d’Utrecht.
Amsterdam: Pierre Mortier, 1728.
£ 1,200
2 vol. 8vo (16 x 10cm); 1) *3, *3-*8, A-T12; (18), 452 pp., (4); 2) A-Y12, Z9; (6), 546 pp. 2 engraved frontispieces; 2 t-pages in black and red ink; 1 fold-out map of Holland and 30 fold out city plans. Roman and Italic script, in French. Slight browning and foxing in both volumes; wormhole on right margin of volume one; top margins of volume two trimmed. Marbled endpapers; a.e.r. Contemporary calf; spine in six compartments divided by five raised bands; gilt decoration and title on spine. Slightly worn covers; corners and spine. Overall, a fine copy.
This 2-volume work is the latest and enlarged edition of the first “guide” to Holland that was originally published in 1660. An emerging literary genre, the travelogue, quickly boasted a large audience in France and this work of Jean-Nicolas de Parival (1605-1669), Les Délices de la Hollande, was one of the literary successes of the second half of the 17th century which was then reissued many times in the 18th century. It can be described as a tourist guide avant-la-lettre, being halfway between a compilation and an original work. In it we find the etymology of the name of the country, geographical information, some remarks on customs, taxes, religion, nobility, government, the navy and the description of the cities of the Southern and Northern Netherlands, starting with Leiden, the author’s residence.
Brunet, IV, 374-375.