PICART, Bernard, & Jean Frederic Bernard.

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The Ceremonies and Religious Customs of the Various Nations of the Known World: First complete edition in English of one of the great books of the 18th century, a beautifully illustrated survey of religious observances around the world, marking "a major turning point in European attitudes toward religious belief" (Hunt, Jacob & Mijnhardt, p. 1). Originally published in French at Amsterdam between 1723 and 1737 (Ceremonies et Coutumes Religieuses de tous les Peuples du Monde), the monumental project was the result of a collaboration between Europe's leading engraver, Bernard Picart, and the publisher and author Jean Frederic Bernard. Both men were Protestant refugees driven by the Counter-Reformation from France to Amsterdam, where, in a fertile milieu of radicals and free-thinkers, they produced one of the world's greatest religious books.An English edition of three volumes only had been published in 1731, by Nicholas Prevost (under the slightly different title The Religious Ceremonies and Customs of the Known World), long before the project was completed in the original French, and with Prevost not continuing the series as the further French volumes appeared. This complete edition was published by Claude du Bosc from 1733 to 1739, reprinting the material which had appeared in the Prevost edition and continuing the series till its completion. Some contemporary owners bound up a mix of the two editions; this set, a uniform copy of the du Bosc editions in a handsome contemporar

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