During the trip and their long stay in Paris (1712–1720), they comment, in letters exchanged with friends and mullahs, on numerous aspects of Western, Christian society, particularly French politics and manners, including a biting satire of the System of John Law.

The chronology can be summarized as follows: While Usbek appreciates the freer relations among men and women in the West, he remains, as master of a seraglio, in some measure a prisoner of his past.

The letters are all dated in accordance with a lunar calendar which, as Robert Shackleton showed in 1954, in fact corresponds to our own by simple substitution of Muslim names as follows: Zilcadé (January), Zilhagé (February), Maharram (March), Saphar (April), Rebiab I (May), Rebiab II (June), Gemmadi I (July), Gemmadi II (August), Rhegeb (September), Chahban (October), Rhamazan (November), Chalval (December).

My decision was soon made: I said no more, and let him talk, and he is still deciding.Although this takes place soon before the death of the aged king, much of what he has accomplished is still admired in a Paris where the Invalides is just being completed and cafés and theatre proliferate.

There are still people foolish enough to search at their own expense for the philosopher's stone; the newsmonger and the periodical press are beginning to play a significant role in everyday life.

Everything from institutions (the university, the Academy, Sciences, the Bull Unigenitus) to groups (fashion, dandies, coquettes) to individuals (the opera singer, the old warrior, the rake, and so forth) comes before the reader's eye.

Though it never occurs to him to cease being a Muslim, and while he still wonders at some aspects of Christianity (the Trinity, communion), he writes to austere authorities to inquire, for example, why some foods are considered to be unclean (letters 15–17 [16–18]).

Various aspects of the book are doubtless indebted to particular models, of which the most important is Giovanni Paolo Marana’s L’Espion dans les cours des princes chrétiens (Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy), widely known at the time, even though Montesquieu’s characters obviously are Persians and not Turks.

While the great popularity of Antoine Galland’s Mille et Une Nuits (The Thousand and One Nights) contributes, as do the Bible and the Qu’ran, to the general ambiance of oriental subjects, in fact it has almost nothing in common with Lettres persanes.

The first edition of the novel, which consisted of 150 letters, appeared in May 1721 under the rubric Cologne: Pierre Marteau, a front for the Amsterdam publisher Jacques Desbordes whose business was now being run by his widow, Susanne de Caux.

A posthumous edition in 1758, prepared by Montesquieu's son, included eight new letters – bringing the total at that point to 161 – and a short piece by the author entitled "Quelques réflexions sur les Lettres persanes".

The Persian side of the story tended to be considered as a fanciful decor, the true interest of the work lying in its factitious "oriental" impressions of French society, along with political and religious satire and critique.

Others who have followed have looked into the ramifications of epistolary form (Rousset, Laufer, Versini), the structure and meaning of the seraglio (Brady, Singerman), and Usbek's purported contradictions.

In recent decades it has been religion (Kra) and especially politics (Ehrard, Goulemot, Benrekassa) which predominate, with a progressive return to the role of the seraglio with all its women and eunuchs (Grosrichard, Goldzink, McAlpin, Starobinski, Delon) or the cultural contrast of Orient and Occident.

14365): see Edgar Mass, "Les éditions des Lettres persanes," Revue française d’histoire du livre nos.

The most important modern French editions: There have been numerous English translations, usually under the title (The) Persian Letters, and based on the posthumous text of 1757: Critical studies: