COLLINS Samuel Relation curieuse de l’Estat présent de la Russie… Avec l’histoire des Révolutions arrivées sous l’Usurpation de Boris, & l’Imposture de Demetrius, derniers Empereurs de Moscovie.

Adelung II, 343.

First edition in French, translated from the English (London 1667). The Russian translation was published much later in 1841.

Samuel Collins (1690-1670), born in Oxford, studied in Oxford and Cambridge before being appointed personal physician to tsar Alexei Michailowich between 1659 and 1667. On his return from Russia he published the present work. Other than giving details on the epidemics such as the Pest and Syphilis, he gives details on the tsar’s caracter.

The book is illustrated with 9 woodcuts of which 6 relate to mushrooms that grow abundantly in Russia, “which feed the poor and that are a delicacy to the rich (p. 168).

Provenance: Joseph-Antoine, marquis de Crozat (with his manuscript book plate on the title verso “Ex Bibliotheca D. Crozat”, his sale, Paris 1751, lot 4391) – engraved armorial book plate (close to the Crozat family but with added ‘lambel’).