THE HISTORY OF THE HELVETIC CONFEDERACY

First edition. Two volumes. 4to. Publisher's original paper-covered boards with printed paper title labels to the spines. Page edges untrimmed. Volume one illustrated with a large folding engraved map of Switzerland and each volume with an engraved vignette to the title page. A very good set, the bindings square and secure with a little cracking to the joints, wear to the spines and wear to the edges and corners of the boards. The contents with the occasional minor mark or spot to page margins and damp-marking to the foot of the first quarter of the pages of the second volume are otherwise in very good order, clean throughout and remain free from any previous owners' inscriptions or stamps. The folding map is in excellent, clean condition and without tears or damage. A splendid, unsophisticated set.

An extensive history of the Old Swiss Confederacy, the precursor to the modern state of Switzerland, which existed between c.1300 and 1798, written following the invasion of French revolutionary forces (which marked the end of the ancien régime in Switzerland) and during the brief existence of the Helvetic Republic (1798-1803). The author, the Swiss-born Joseph Planta FRS (1744-1827), who served as the Principal Librarian of the British Museum for the first quarter of the nineteenth century, dedicated the work to George III, asserting his "most lively satisfaction in being suffered to lay this narrative at the feet of a Monarch, who, ruling over a free people, has exhibited the brightest example of firmness and vigour, in resisting the torrent of vice and anarchy, which has of late threatened the subversion of civilised society".