Beauties of the Bosphorus, Julia Pardoe circa 1840. This book is titled “The Beauties Of the Bosphorus by Miss Pardoe. Illustrated in a Series of Views Of Constantinople And Its Environs, From Original Drawings By W. H. Bartlett”, and it was published by Virtue And Co. in London circa 1839 or 1840. Julia Pardoe (1806 - 1862) was an English poet, novelist, and historian who suffered from consumption when she was young, so her father traveled with her to Turkey in the 1830’s, possibly thinking she might have benefited from the new surroundings. They went to Constantinople in 1835 and shortly after, she wrote her most popular work, “The City of the Sultan and Domestic Manners of the Turks” in 1837; previously, Europeans had a glorified, aggrandized view of the Turkish people, but Pardoe's work described the Turkish upper class with sympathy and humanity. Her next book, “The Beauties of the Bosphorus”, was published in 1838, and it had panoramic views of Constantinople and other Ottoman cities. She described kiosks, Turkish baths, slave markets, harems, aqueducts, homes and more, even the mausoleum and the mosque of Suleiman the Magnificent, the longest-reigning sultan of the Ottoman Empire - he reigned from 1520 until his death in 1566, and under his administration, the Ottoman Empire ruled over at least 25 million people - and her book was significant as an early work on the region by a woman. The first edition was published in 1838 and had only 164 pages of text and 78 plates, and this copy has 172 pages of text and 85 plates, so this is probably the third edition published around 1839 or 1840. The book has five raised bands, six gilt-ruled compartments with gilt titles and elaborate gilt tooling on the spine, five gilt-decorated bands on the front and back covers, marbled endpapers with wide gilt dentelles on the front and rear paste-downs, a frontis portrait of Julia Pardoe, then a vignette title page, the regular title page (it is undated), one page of Contents, followed by one page of Directions to the Binder, which includes a List of Plates, there are 172 pages of text and a map of Constantinople tipped in between pages 150 and 151, and all the edges are gilt. The attractive views were engraved from drawings by William Henry Bartlett (1809 - 1854), whose series of oriental and American topography were very popular then. The book was such a hit, it went into many editions, and later editions were published under the title "Picturesque Europe" (1854 and 1874). The book is 4to. and measures 11 x 8 7/8 in. wide, with a tight binding and clean pages and text, there’s light brown spots on the blank endpapers, toning and offset on the frontis portrait and vignette title page, brown spots on the front and back of some of the plates, rubbing at the heel and crown and along the edges of the spine, along the edges of the boards and light wear at the tips, the book won’t shut tight at page 142. ‘ The lowest price for a third edition offered online starts at $400 and runs all the way up to $1300, and first editions run even higher, and an important work by a woman in the 1800’s. #210 #1644