Richard Knolles, Paul Rycaut

Finely bound first-edition set of the greatest English Renaissance work on Turkey.

• Sold as a set of 2.
• Richard Knolles (English).
• Paul Rycaut (English).
• The Turkish History, from the original of that nation to the growth of the Ottoman Empire, with the Lives and Conquests of their several Kings and Emperors; with a continuation to the present year MDCLXXXVII.
• London: Thomas Basset, 1687.
• Folio.
• Includes 21 engraved plates including frontispieces, bookplates and with half title in vol. 1.
• Bound in contemporary mottled calf gilt, red morocco lettering piece with Marquis of Stafford gilt arms to covers.

The greatest English work of the seventeenth century dealing with Turkey. The historian and translator Richard Knolles (d. 1610) spent twelve years on the completion of his grand narrative account of the Ottoman Empire, which was based on the work of earlier authorities such as Busbecq, Giovio, Georgievitz, etc. The engraved portraits are largely taken from Boissard’s Vitae et Icones Sultanorum, first published in 1596.

This is the first collected edition of Knolles' and Rycaut's works (and the sixth edition of Knolles' Turkish History overall). A third volume was issued in 1700 containing Rycaut’s continuation up to 1699. In this copy, the "Contents" leaves for the Rycaut are bound at the end of the volume, rather than at the beginning.

These volumes are a combination of important works by well-known English historians of the Ottoman Empire. Knolles was commissioned to write the first English language history on this subject, which first appeared in 1603 and was hailed not only as an important history but as a skillfully crafted piece of English prose (Dr. Johnson). The editor and updater Sir Paul Rycaut (1629–1700) traveled to Constantinople in 1661 as secretary to the English ambassador Heneage Finch, third earl of Winchilsea. Rycaut's detailed information on the Ottoman Empire of his time came from various sources including Turkish records, members of the government and Ulema, and from a Pole who had spent nineteen years at the Ottoman court. An important pairing which produced an influential work.

Marquis of Stafford, politician and plutocrat (arms to covers, bookplate); Sir Herbert Conyers Surtees, 1858-1933, military leader and politician (inscription to front free endpaper dated 1911).

Atabey 1076.

Blackmer 1466.