12mo. Two volumes bound as one. [4], 7-155; 234 [i.e. 134]pp. Later gilt-tooled calf-backed marbled paper boards, contrasting red morocco lettering-piece. Lightly rubbed. Internally clean and crisp. From the library of Mary Hill, Marchioness of Downshire, Baroness Sandys (1774-1836), with her gilt monogram to head of spine.

The first edition of a curious work combining literary romance with medical instruction, by Parisian physician Antoine Le Camus (1722-1772).

Purportedly translated from an Arabic text, Le Camus's singular work charts the forbidden love of the eponymous Abdeker, a youthful medical practitioner assigned to the care of the Sultan's harem at Constantinople, and Fatmé, an incomparable beauty and jewel of the seraglio. Abdeker undertakes to impart to his beloved all the means by which to preserve her striking looks. The conceit allows Le Camus to convey practical hygienic and cosmetic advice to his readership, providing advice on the use of a plethora of ointments and unguents to preserve to skin quality, lists of which appear at the end of each volume.

The work was reissued in 1756, with the addition of a further two parts. These two supplements lacked literary or medical merit and were excluded from the third edition of 1774.

Provenance: From the Sandys family library at Ombersley Court, by descent from Mary Hill, Marchioness of Downshire, recently dispersed.