1822, Barthelemy, Voyage du jeune Anacharsis en Grèce, 7 vols.

Condition : good, slightly rubbed, slight foxing, vol. 4 p. 90 - 144 and vol. 5 up to page 48  browned, vol. 6 up to p. 50 faint trace of moisture in the lower margin. Overall a good, clean copy.
Illustrations : decorated with a portrait of the author and six beautiful figures drawn by Colin, pupil of Girodet, engraved by the first artists of Paris.
Binding : contemporary half leather, spine gilt .
Volume : 7 volumes (without the Atlas).
Format : In-8.
Pages : about 2000 pp.
Publisher : Paris, Etienne Ledoux.
Date : 1822.
References : Barbier I, 675.

Excellent history of ancient Greece.

Edition printed on fine paper from Annonay.

Jean-Jacques Barthélemy was born in Cassis on 20 January 1716, but it was in Aubagne, where his father Joseph owned a large house in the Craux district, that the future abbot spent his childhood. Jean-Jacques' father was financially well off and sent him to study at the Collège de l'Oratoire in Marseille, where he received a solid humanist education. Later, with the Jesuits, he learned Greek, Hebrew, Arabic and various oriental languages for which he became passionate.
It was at the end of his life that the abbot began writing a work that would become a milestone. Published in 1788, the Voyage du Jeune Anacharsis en Grèce, vers le IVe siècle avant l'ère vulgaire (Journey of the Young Anacharsis in Greece, around the 4th century BC) is what we would call a "best seller" today. The abbot impresses his peers with his scientifically accurate descriptions of the ancient Greek landscape, even though he had never been to Greece. The book was such a success that it had to be republished some forty times.