This volume illustrates how, in the 18th century, authors from Italy, France, England, Spain, and the German-speaking world used images of the Near, Middle, and Far East to outline Europe in its cultural peculiarities. The Orient and Occident repeatedly appear as opposites that threaten each other's existence. In this context, the 'Other' simultaneously represents a crucial necessity for self-definition. This book demonstrates, through a comparative examination of numerous works in Italian, French, English, Spanish, and German, how a specific genre has contributed to the construction of cultural identities: epistolary novels in which a fictional traveler from the Near, Middle, or Far East describes Western European societies to his compatriots.