Etiquette

Madame de Morville's thirty three letters concerning the proper instruction of the social neophyte, are written not in the style of Louis XIV, who - history maintains - established an elaborate and rigid court ceremony, but rather in the tradition of the celebrated 17thc. Parisian courtesan, Ninon de L'Enclos, whose own civil rules and regulations included the maxim: The sanctity of the drawing-room is elevated by the turn of a lady's boot. Although the French word étiquette, signifying ticket [of admission], did not first appear in the English language until the year 1750,Madame de Morville's midnight musings explain that fashionable society is indeed divided into sets, in all of which there is some peculiarity of manner, or some dominant tone of feeling, a revelation that modern man should study before attempting to enter into her service.
Whether the reader of this book is drawn from the upper echelons of the aristocratic order, or finds himself on a moonlit night to be the proverbial urchin in a Neapolitan street, the content of these thirty-three letters will prove vital to his social betterment, to the acceptability of Madame de Morville's observation that politeness seems to be a certain care, by the manner of one's words and actions, to make others pleased with us and themselves, and is not the same thing in the two sexes.
The letters are accompanied by 11 sumptuous watercolours of Sardax