[Rarebooks] fa: EDMUND BURKE - REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE 1790 - 1st Ed./1st Issue (+ Hannah More & Richard Price on the Same)

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, July 24. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/jklssfg

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Edmund Burke: Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the Proceedings in Certain Societies in London Relative to that Event. In a Letter Intended to have been Sent to a Gentleman in Paris. London: Printed for J. Dodsley, In Pall-Mall, MDCCXC [1790]. FIRST EDITION, FIRST IMPRESSION; iv, 356 pp. ESTC T46573; PMM 239; Goldsmiths' 14519; Rothschild 522; Todd 53a.

[BOUND WITH:]

Hannah More: Remarks on the Speech of M. Dupont, made in the National Convention of France, on the Subjects of Religion and Public Education. London: Printed for T. Cadell in the Strand, MDCCXCIII [1793]. Second edition; xv, [1], 48 pp. ESTC T46847.

[BOUND WITH:]

Richard Price: A Discourse on the Love of Our Country, delivered on Nov. 4, 1789, at the Meeting-house in the Old Jewry, to the Society for Commemorating the Revolution in Great Britain. With an Appendix, concerning the Report of the Committee of the Society; an Account of the Population of France; and the Declaration of Rights by the National Assembly of France. London: Printed by George Stafford, for T. Cadell, MDCCLXXXIX [1789]. Second edition; [4], 51, [1], 13, [3], x, [35]-44 pp.; with the half-title page and advertisement leaf, as called for. ESTC T31993.

Three works bound in one volume, 8vo (22 cm), in early/period tree calf, rebacked with later (but not recent) calf. Wear to the edges and corners, original spine label rubbed away, joints rubbed and cracked but secure; first work with a few splashes of ink to the title-page and one page of the text, otherwise the contents are quite clean and fresh with some occasional mild toning and scattered light spots.

Burke's condemnatory Reflections on the Revolution in France is one of the foundation texts of modern conservative political thought. "In the eternal debate between the ideal and the practical, the latter had never had a more powerful or moving advocate, nor one whose own ideals were higher" (Printing and the Mind of Man). This copy matches the points for the first edition, first impression, as called for in Todd's Bibliography of Edmund Burke, to wit, the "M" in the date of the imprint on the title-page is below the "D" in "Dodsley," rather than slightly to the right of it, and the specified press figures are present on pp. 10, 116, 171, and 354.

Bound with two other views of the French Revolution by Hannah More and Richard Price. The indefatigable Miss More, whose reaction is at least as disapproving as Burke's, prefaces her work with an "Address to the Ladies, &c., of Great Britain, in behalf of the French Emigrant Clergy," to whom "the Profits of this Publication are to be given." On the other hand, the more republican-minded Rev. Price, a supporter of the American Revolution a generation before, is practically exultant: "Be encouraged, all ye friends of freedom!… The times are auspicious… Behold, the light you have struck out, after setting AMERICA free, reflected to FRANCE, and there kindled into a blaze that lays despotism in ashes, and warms and illuminates EUROPE!" Of course, this was written in 1789 and Price was dead less than two years later, before the worst excesses of the French Revolution were manifested. This copy includes the "'Additions' found in some copies at end of the work" (ESTC).