Captivating Japan

New edition (third?) and first in 6 volumes. The first edition dates from 1746. Les Songes philosophiques are in first edition.
Contemporary full speckled brown calf bindings. Smooth spines decorated. Red morocco title and volume labels. Triple gilt fillet and star cornerpieces on boards. All edges red. Three head caps and three tail caps worn. A few corners very slightly bumped.
The Lettres chinoises, inaugurated by the same author as the Lettres juives have this typical Enlightenment design of comparing the customs and habits of several civilizations; the work takes up the scheme, always humorous, of the first work of this type: L'espion de la cour de Marana, then Montesquieu's Lettres persanes. A Chinese narrator writes to his compatriots from different places in Europe (Moscow, Stockholm, Paris...). The work is always supposed to make us question the strangeness of our own thoughts and customs. D'Argens also describes several journeys to the Orient, with interesting information on the customs and institutions of Oriental countries. Like the Lettres cabalistiques or Jewish letters by the same author, the Lettres chinoises were published in periodicals.
The philosophical dreams, numbering twenty, accounts of dreams, are authentic utopias; the first tells of a land inhabited and governed by monkeys, Singimanie; the second takes a monkey and the narrator to the Changijournes, a people who continually change their clothes and fashion... In the fifteenth dream, the narrator receives a visit from Racine, and the dialogue expounds the subject matter of belles-lettres in the author's time.

Rare first edition of this novel recounting the story of a wealthy Swiss industrialist who abandons everything to lead a bohemian life in Japan.
Cover faded, title page loose, small marginal tears.
Rare.