"Among the most ambitious and significant of all Catherine's undertakings" (Fekula)

Author

CATHERINE II, THE GREAT.

Title

Instructions
adressées par sa Majesté l'Impératrice de toutes les Russies a la Commision établie pour travailler a l'exécution du projet d'un nouveau Code de Lois. Traduit de l'Allemand [by Jean Rodolphe Frey des Landres].

Published, Date

No publisher, Petersbourg [Yverdon],1769.

Description

12mo (16.8 x 10.3 cm). 286 pp. including half-title and title; light waterstain in lower margin. Contemporary tree calf, flat spine, red morocco title label lettered in gilt; rebacked to style preserving original label, slightly rubbed at extremities. Provenance: Edward, Earl of Powis (armorial bookplate on upper pastedown with motto 'Audacter et sincere').

Note

Fresh copy of the uncommon first French edition of the celebrated Russian 'Nakaz' of Catherine the Great, originally published and "signé de la propre main de Sa Majeste Imperiale" in 1768 These 'great instructions' were "largely compiled and adapted by Catherine personally from the texts of Montesquieu and Beccaria. Although the project was never brought to fruition, the impulse behind it stands as one of the nobler concepts of Catherine's reign" (Fekula 2013, for a later edition).

References

Barbier II, 943d.

Stock Number

71746