BETHUNE (Chevalier de). Relation of the world... Lot 1637

[BETHUNE (Chevalier de)]. Relation of the world of Mercury. Geneva, Barillot & fils, 1750. 2 parts in one vol. in-12, title, xvj-264 pp, title, 286 pp, with a frontispiece and a repeated header vignette, fawn calf, spine ribbed and decorated, red title page, framed with a cold fillet on the boards, red edges (period binding). Upper spine trimmed, bookplate torn off. First edition of this curious utopia, in which the distance is not spatial or temporal strictly speaking, but technical: the world of Mercury is explored by an instrument invented by a Rosicrucian and strangely named "philosophical microscope" (in fact a telescope), introducing to a miniature parallel universe. One has the feeling of a reverie. The aspect of contemporary criticism is very attenuated, except for the conquest of the Americas, which is still surprising for the genre concerned.