The Abbé de Vertot and his ‘Histoire de Malte’

by Robert Thake

6.5 x 9.5 inches, cloth with dust jacket, (Oak Knoll Press, 2016).

This remarkable and entertaining study examines perhaps the most notorious example of a book whose enormous popular success was due almost entirely to its being banned by the Vatican.

"Collectors, booksellers, cultural historians and librarians are the target audience of Robert Thake's scrupulous, meticulous, sumptuously produced and painstakingly researched biography of a book."
— David Coward, the Times Literary Supplement