The French dramatist and writer Louis-Sebastien Mercier wrote a great many plays, pamphlets, and novels but is perhaps best remembered for this guide to Paris printed on the eve of the Revolution. Earlier authors had described Paris’s monuments and the lives of its wealthy elites, but Mercier was the first to try to capture in words the aspects of everyday life. Mercier’s writing influenced Balzac and other nineteenth-century French novelists and continues to serve as a major source of social and cultural history for historians. Another two volumes were printed in 1788. French text. Note bookplate of Sir William Paxton, businessman and Welsh Member of Parliament.