SAVARY Claude-Étienne. Letters on Egypt. Paris, Bleuet, an VII-1798; 3 vols. - Letters on Greece. Ibid, id, 1 vol. Together 4 vol. in-8 (196 x 123 mm), green shagreened calf, cherry calf title-papers and tomaison, garland on the boards (Period bindings). 4 maps and 2 plates, including one of the Great Pyramid. Fascinated by Egypt, Savary spent three years there (1776-78), adopting the local costume and customs, speaking Arabic, mingling with the population, listening to storytellers, translating the Koran and staying in Alexandria, Rosetta and Cairo. A pioneer of Egyptology, he described the sites, measured the monuments... and recounted, not without humour, his nocturnal visit to the Pyramids, in the uncertain light of torches, crawling through the galleries, in the company of thousands of bats... His letters are addressed to his friend Louis Le Monnier, the king's first physician and a botanist. A very fine copy in attractive, fresh contemporary bindings.