YOUNG, Arthur. Travels during the years 1787, 1788 and 1789, undertaken more particularly with a view of ascertaining the Cultivation, Wealth, Resources, and National Prosperity of the Kingdom of France

To which is added, the Register of a tour into Spain. With three folding maps, one coloured. Dublin: Printed for Messers. R. Cross P. Wogan L. White and Others, 1793. Medium octavo. pp. (1) xvi, 581 (2) 571 [3]. Contemporary full tree calf, spines professionally rebacked, title in gilt on red morocco labels on gilt decorated spines. Some toning. A handsome set.

one of the most important contemporary accounts of France immediately before and during the French Revolution. Young travelled extensively throughout the country, recording agriculture, land ownership, taxation, commerce, living conditions and regional prosperity with remarkable detail. His observations provide an invaluable eyewitness picture of French society and the economic inequalities of the ancien régime as revolutionary upheaval approached. Combining travel narrative with agricultural and economic analysis, the work remains an essential primary source for historians of eighteenth-century France, the French Revolution, European agriculture and political economy, and a landmark of early travel literature.

[L3 Arch]