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96 PICART, Bernard, & Jean Frédéric Bernard. The Ceremonies and Religious Customs of the Various Nations of the Known World. London: Printed by William
Jackson, for Claude du Bosc, 1733–39 “the book that changed europe”
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 Frédéric 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, with less than half the number of plates, 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
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sharjah international book fair
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