Memoirs of the Courts of Berlin, Dresden, Warsaw, and Vienna, in the Years 1777-79

Nathaniel Wraxall (1751-1831) worked for the East India Company before becoming an MP in 1780. He travelled extensively in Europe and moved in royal and diplomatic circles, collecting anecdotes which later made their way into several popular travel narratives and memoirs that were to bring him great fame. In this work, published in two volumes in 1799 and using an epistolary form, Wraxall gives his impressions of a number of European courts that he visited in the late 1770s. Volume 2 describes Poland as a country in decline, and discusses the historical background to its present condition. He also provides anecdotes of the court and people of Vienna, and especially of the Habsburg monarchs Maria Theresa and Joseph II.