Voltaire - Histoire de l'Empire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand - 1775

Original 18th-century edition of Voltaire's History of Russia — highly sought after by Russica collectors.
Bibliographic record:
Voltaire - OEUVRE DE VOLTAIRE - TOMO XXII - PIERRE LE GRAND - Histoire de l'Empire de Russie sous Pierre le Grand. En deux parties. M. DCC. LXXV. [1775]. Geneva / Cramer — the famous edition of the Complete Works supervised by Voltaire himself, 1768-1790. This volume XXII is devoted entirely to the history of Russia.
375 pp. + frontispiece.

Major historical work by Voltaire on Russia, written from documents provided by Empress Elizabeth of Russia. Includes:
• The life of Peter the Great
• The war against Charles XII of Sweden
• The Battle of Poltava 1709
• The Pruth Campaign 1711, where Peter was surrounded by Turks and Tartars — with the contemporary map of the camp
• The founding of Saint Petersburg
One of the first histories of Russia in the West and a cornerstone of any Russica library. Highly sought after, especially by Russian and French collectors.

1. Original 18th-century binding from 1775 — full genuine leather of the period, not a later rebound. Spine with raised bands, richly gilt with floral tooling, red and black labels: OEUVRE DE VOLTAIRE / TOM XXII / PIERRE LE GRAND. This is the correct binding for the Cramer edition.
2. Complete frontispiece portrait of PETER THE GREAT — engraved portrait in armor with a medallion, missing in about 50% of copies. Present and clean in this copy.
3. The important map / plan of the Camp of the Pruth — p.191 — UNDER PETER THE GREAT. II. P. Ch. I. 191 — showing Camp of the Tsar / River Pruth / Camp of the Turks / Camp of the Tartars / Route from Gurguli to Yassi. This plate engraved in the text is present and sharp. It is the map that illustrates the book's most dramatic episode.
4. Complete text, two parts in one volume, with the original 1775 title page dated M. DCC. LXXV.

• Upper spine cap worn / with small loss — approx. 8mm — typical in 250-year-old leather; see photo of the spine. Upper cap worn. The rest of the spine gilding remains bright and legible.
• Leather rubbed and chafed, especially at corners and joints — honest agewear, no active moth.
• Interior: foxing / light to moderate brown speckling, especially on first and last leaves — typical of 18th-century paper. The portrait and map are cleaner than the text. No water stains, no mold, no marginalia.
• Marbleized edges faded.
• The grand folding map of the Pruth camp is not present (not included in this copy, unlike some deluxe editions). This copy has the standard in-text map on p.191, which was the standard issue for the Oeuvres edition. No stub — it was never present in this copy, never torn out.
Despite the wear, this is a very presentable, complete and straightforward copy of a 250-year-old book on Peter the Great.

Perfect for Voltaire collection, Russica / Petrina collection, eighteenth-century Russian history, castle library.