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Lot description
CAYLUS (Anne-Claude comte de) Contes orientaux tirés des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque du Roy. La Haye, sn, 1743. 2 volumes in-12 (17 x 10 cm), tan glazed calf, ornate ribbed spine, red and brown morocco title-pieces, red edges (period binding). Joints worn, some rubbed. Illustrated with intaglio figures: frontispiece, title-page vignette, entablature illustration and incipit lettering, 8 out-of-text illustrations). Vol. I. [4] ff (title, epistle, printer's notice to the reader), 312 pp, [8] pp ("Liste de quelques Manés [...]"), 4 figures. Vol. II. [1] title f., 331-[1] pp. and 4 figures. (Chauvin IV-335). According to Loiseleur-Deslongchamps: "We owe the Contes Orientaux to the stay that the Comte de Caylus made in Constantinople, following the French ambassador. All these tales are translated or imitated from the Turkish, the author has made a selection and assembled them under a framework which bears some resemblance to those of the Thousand and One Nights and the Thousand and One Days [...] The Oriental tales [...] are indeed extracted from translations composed by young linguists and deposited in the manuscript cabinet". These translations are the work of the "enfants de langues", who were ordered by the king's minister to translate Arabic, Turkish and Persian works into French, and to send him a translation. The Cabinet des Manuscrits holds a collection of these translations. The Jeunes de langue collection of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs sometimes refers to them. (cf. Persia and France, Musée Cernuschi).