TELLIAMED OU ENTRETIENS D'UN PHILOSOPHE INDIEN AVEC UN MISSIONNAIRE FRANÇOIS SUR LA DIMINUTION DE LA MER, LA FORMATION DE LA TERRE, L'ORIGINE DE L'HOMME, &c. ... Mis en ordre sur les Mémories de feu M. de Maillet. Par J. A. G ***. Amsterdam: Chez L'honoré & Fils, Libraires, 1748. Octavo, two volumes in one: pp. [1-10] i-lxix [lxx] [1-8] [1] 2-208 [209-210] [211: errata] [212: blank]; [1-2] [1] 2-231 [232: bank] [note: pages 113-120 of volume one were not printed; see errata], contemporary full calf, spine panel richly ruled and tooled in gold, leather title piece, all edges marbled, marbled endpapers. First edition. The posthumously published TELLIAMED, the main work of Benoit de Maillet (1656-1738), a well-traveled French diplomat and natural historian, is primarily a geological treatise presented as the theories of an Indian mystic encountered by a French missionary during an imaginary voyage to India, Maillet's work, based on his extensive travels throughout Egypt and other Mediterranean countries, attempts to relate man to geology and geology to the universe within the context of Cartesian logic. His theories are said to have influenced Diderot and Darwin. "TELLIAMED is far more of a scholarly fantasy than a work of fiction; the dialogue framework is tokenistic and apart from the description of the invention and usage of the Lanterne there is no story component. The addition of the dedication [to the 1755 third edition] placing it in the same genre as L'AUTRE MONDE is a mere ploy. Nevertheless, the work is of more than marginal relevance to the development of roman scientifique, primarily because of its influence on Restif de la Bretonne and the encouragement it gave him to work out a much more elaborate version of the scholarly fantasy, making very extensive use of fiction as a means of that elaboration, but also because of references to it in several other significant works of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries." - Stableford, The Plurality of Imaginary Worlds: The evolution of French Roman Scientifique, pp. 103-05. Cioranescu 41376. Sabin 43891. Light wear at upper spine end and upper corner tips, rubbing to lower corner tips and along outer joints, a very good copy with fine interior. A nice copy overall. (#95393).
Price: $1,000.00
No statement of printing.