Peter Laurent: Recollections of a Classical Tour through Various Parts of Greece, Turkey, and Italy.London 1822 Second expanded edition, large 8vo,complete in two volumes and 4 fine colored aquatints,later leather over boards,text clean and bright, overall in very good condition. Peter Edmund Laurent (1796-1837) was not a typical Lord on a Grand Tour. He was a polyglot and scholar. He reportedly spoke nearly every Western European language and was proficient in Arabic, Latin, and Ancient Greek. This linguistic skill allowed him to speak directly with locals, making his recollections far more intimate than those of his contemporaries.Laurent traveled just before the Greek War of Independence broke out. His book captures the calm before the storm, providing a vivid look at the Greek lands under Turkish rule with a focus on daily life rather than just military politics. As a scholar, he was obsessed with finding the locations mentioned in Homer and Herodotus. He spent significant time in the Troad and Constantinople.His itinerary was famously altered by a plague epidemic, which forced him to abandon plans for Northern Greece and head toward Athens and the Peloponnese. Unlike dry histories, Laurent recorded small events,conversations in tavernas, the behavior of Turkish officials, and the curiosities of local customs.It is a pre-revolutionary snapshot. Within two years of his tour, many of the places he described would be irrevocably changed or destroyed by the war.