Giovanni P. Marana, author of the letters in this volume was an Italian living in France in the seventeenth century. He wrote in the character of a Turk visiting Paris. Marana was probably the first writer to use the device of a series of letters written by a visitor to a foreign country in order to comment satirically on contemporary politics, culture, religion and philosophy. Disguised as a Moldavian priest, Mahmut, the letter-writer, is in Paris on a mission to spy on the Christians and to send secret letters in Arabic to the Turkish Court. He is an acute observer of the courts of Louis XIII and XIV, the disastrous politics and wars of the seventeenth century, the crude manner and superstitions of the Europeans and the seamy side of France in le grand siècle. One of the first and most compelling spy stories ever written, and immensely popular throughout the eighteenth century, this reprint (originally published in 1970) has been edited and selected by Arthur J. Weitzman, who provides a critical introduction and notes.
