First edition of the first book printed with Roman letters in Turkey. Holdermanns Grammaire Turque is the first French-Turkish grammar, printed on behalf of the French embassy to the Porte, at the first printing press established in 1726 by Zaid Aga Effendi, son of the Turkish ambassador to France, and Ibrahim Müteferrika. The type apparently was sent out from France especially for this work. Words and phrases are given both in Arabic type and in roman transliteration. The engraved alphabetic table displays the phonetic values and names (in the Latin alphabet) for the letters of the Arabic alphabet, with the shapes of the unconnected letterforms for seven different styles of Turkish writing for different uses: nesghi (naskh) for the quran, divani (divani) for business, tealik (taliq) for law and poetry, kyrma (qirma) for public registers; sulus (thuluth), like capitals, is used for book titles and imperial patents, jakuti and rejani. One letterpress table in the text shows the letters of the Arabic alphabet with various vowel points and another shows the Arabic number system.
With a contemporary ownership of a Romanian (Wallachian) nobleman in French service on the lower flyleaf ("Mr Pierre Rhetorides Grand Vornike de Valachie et Michmandare de Sa Hautesse le Grand Marechale de Frence"). Binding a little rubbed; corners bumped. Insignificant traces of worming to lower gutter near the beginning; water stain in the margin of first quire and diffuse water stains on pp. 131-138. The first leaf of the index is bound after the title-page, the remaining two at the end. Complete with the final errata leaf. Atabey 586; Blackmer 824; Brunet II, 1693 ("volume peu commun et assez recherché"); De Backer/Sommervogel IV, 431, 1; Toderini, Letteratura turchesca (1787) III, 89-97; Watson, "Ibrahim Müteferrika and Turkish incunabula", Journal of the American Oriental Society, 88 (1968), pp. 435-441, at p. 437, no. 8; Zenker 304.