Memoirs of Baron de Tott. Containing the state of the Turkish Empire and the Crimea, during the late war with Russia. With numerous anecdotes, facts, and observations, on the manners and customs of the Turks and Tartars. (2 volumes)

Francois de Tott

G. G. J. and J. Robinson, Pater-Noster-Row, 1785

[A View of the 18th Century Ottoman Empire] First English edition.  4 parts in 2 volumes. Bound in contemporary 1/2 leather over marbled boards.  Head of spine of v.2 chipped.  Solid bindings. xxxv, 236; 160 [18]pp.  Baron de Tott was a Hungarian in the French military and secret service.  He went to Istanbul in 1755 - 1763, developed a knowledge of the language and served as consul in Crimea.   He returned to Constantinope in 1769 and served as inspector general in the Levant with Sonnini 1776-1778.  "His memoirs had a great success; they provide objective information and a new unromantic view of the Ottoman Empire," Blackmer 1667 for 1785 French edition.  "He passed some time among the Tartars and in the Crimea, traversed Moldavia and Wallachia, and finally reached Constantinople, where he untertook a very peculiar mission. Eton asserts Baron Tott's Account of Turkey, and of its inhabitants, to be the best and most exact. The description of the Crimea, and its inhabitants, is, perhaps, the most interesting" (Cox I, 234.)