Description: Persian Letters is a classic of European literature by Baron de Montesquieu. Through the astute observations of his two fictional Persian travelers in Europe--Usbek and Rica--Montesquieu asks fundamental questions about human nature, the manners and flirtations of polite society, the structures of power, and the hypocrisy of religion-all in a witty, inventive satire that combines travel literature and the epistolary genre. Indeed, this pioneering epistolary novel appeared almost twenty years before Richardson's Pamela. This is the first English translation based on the new, definitive edition of the original French text.
