Pierre Bayle- Reader of travel literature - Joy Charnley Kartoniert (TB)

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries travel literature became increasingly popular and influential in Europe as more people travelled and brought back tales from far-off lands. The Far East in particular China came very much to the fore at the end of the seventeenth century and provided an important example of tolerance which contrasted starkly with the persecution rife in Europe. Travel accounts about such countries had a strong impact on Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) a Huguenot exiled in Rotterdam who had himself suffered persecution and in his writings waged a ceaseless campaign a gainst it. Without the ideas borrowed from récits his writing would not be what it is.