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Author: Hill, Aaron
Title: A Full and Just Account of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire in All its Branches: With the Government, and Policy, Religion, Customs, and Way of Living of the Turks in General
Place Published: London
Publisher:J. Mayo and J. Woodward
Date Published: 1709
Description:

[4], xxvii, [8], 339 pp. Illustrated with 6 full page engravings, each with a leaf of explanatory text not included in pagination, lacking frontispiece. (Folio) 33.5x21.5 cm (13¼x8½"), period full paneled calf, decorative rule blindstamped. First Edition, First Printing.

This volume presents all of the Middle East, including Egypt, Palestine and the entire Ottoman Empire, as described by an Englishman of means. "[Aaron Hill] was born in London on the 10th of February 1685. He was the son of George Hill of Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, who contrived to sell an estate entailed on his son. In his fourteenth year he left Westminster School to go to Constantinople, where William, Lord Paget de Beaudesert (1637-1713), a relative of his mother, was ambassador. Paget sent him, under care of a tutor, to travel in Palestine and Egypt, and he returned to England in 1703. He was estranged from his patron by the "envious fears and malice of a certain female", and again went abroad as companion to Sir William Wentworth. On his return home in 1709 he published A Full and Just Account of the Present State of the Ottoman Empire" (NNDB). This book was meant to establish Hill's literary credentials and, although it received much attention at the time, Hill soon found it to be an embarrassment. Each of the seven plates (Turks of Quality at Dinner; A Turkish Funeral; A Prospect of the Great Seraglio of the Turkish Sultan at Constantinople; Inward Plan of the Grand Signiors Seraglio; A Grecian Wedding; In the Catacombs of Egypt; In Egyptian Hieroglyphic) was dedicated to a different person of rank, no doubt to encourage them to purchase more copies. Hill went on to become a playwright and manager of Drury-Lane Theater. After a falling-out with the players Hill became a poet and miscellaneous writer, editing the Plain-Dealer with William Bond (1724-27), and The Prompter (1734-36).

Wear to leather boards, with flaking and chips along edges and spines with some loss; hinges cracked, missing endpaper, frontispiece & 2nd page of dedication, ownership mark on title page, damage to pastedowns, toning and foxing throughout, some dampstaining and warping, binding intact; very good for age.