LAMARTINE Alphonse de - Histoire de la Turquie - 1854-1855

History of Turkey, by Alphonse de Lamartine: Paris, at Librairie du Constitutionnel, 1854-1855. 8 volumes in 12mo of 400 + 424 + 420 + 450 + 400 + 446 + 413 + 403 pages. Complete first edition. Binding in half black morocco and percaline, spine with 4 false bands, panels decorated with cold-stamped borders, direct titling and pagination. Bindings slightly rubbed, foxing, damp stain in the corner affecting about one hundred pages in Volume 4.
A notable event in the history of the press, this original edition (or pre-original according to bibliophiles) was published by the famous Parisian daily Le Constitutionnel. The volumes were offered free as a premium to the newspaper’s subscribers.
After his famous Voyage en Orient (1835) and his gradual withdrawal from French political life after 1848, Lamartine devoted himself to major historical works for literary and financial reasons.
In this panorama, he traces the epic of the Ottoman Empire from its tribal origins to the 19th century. He dwells at length on emblematic figures such as Soliman/Suleiman the Magnificent, but also on palace intrigues, the geopolitics of the Crimean War (very topical in 1854), and sketches a deeply romantic, yet well-documented, portrait of Turkish society and customs.
Overall good, despite a few defects