MOTTLEY, John.
The History of the Life of Peter I. Emperor of Russia.
London: Printed for J. Read , 1739.
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First Edition of John Mottley's The History of the Life of Peter I
First edition of this comprehensive account of the Tsar who transformed Russia from a medieval autocracy into a major European power through military conquest, sweeping administrative reform, and his legendary personal pursuit of Western technical knowledge. Octavo, three volumes, bound in full polished calf with gilt numbers and ruling to the spines in six compartments within raised bands, double gilt ruling to the front and rear panels, red speckling to the edges, turn-ins stamped in blind, frontispiece, illustrated with engraved portraits, decorations, and a folding map of the Russian Empire. In very good condition with toning, rubbing to the boards, and bumping.
The History of the Life of Peter I, Emperor of Russia (London, 1739) is a three-volume biographical and historical work by John Mottley (1692-1750), the English playwright, biographer, and historian whose literary career encompassed dramatic works for the London stage alongside historical compilations of considerable scope and industry. Published in the year that marked the centenary of Peter the Great's birth, the work stands as the most comprehensive English-language life of the Russian emperor produced in the eighteenth century, drawing on the accounts of European diplomats, military officers, and travelers who had direct access to Peter's court, as well as on the growing body of continental European scholarship on the Russian empire that had accumulated in the decades following the Tsar's death in 1725. Peter I (1672-1725), who transformed Russia from a backward medieval state into a major European power through his military campaigns against Sweden and the Ottoman Empire, his administrative and ecclesiastical reforms, his founding of St. Petersburg as a western-facing imperial capital, and his personal expeditions to the workshops and shipyards of Western Europe in search of technical knowledge to bring home, was a figure of enormous fascination to eighteenth-century European readers, and Mottley's work met a genuine appetite for a comprehensive and accessible account of a reign that had altered the geopolitical landscape of the continent.
The History of the Life of Peter I. Emperor of Russia.
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