Rare First Edition Of Burke’s Influential Treatise On The Sublime, Igniting British Romanticism And His Later Work On Revolution 9. BURKE, Edmund. A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. London, 1757. Octavo, contemporary full brown tree calf, custom chemise and slipcase. $5000. Click for more info First edition of Edmund Burke’s influential work, a touchstone in the development of British Romanticism and the theoretical foundation for his celebrated 1790 work, Reflections on the Revolution in France, very scarce in contemporary tree calf. An early association copy with the owner signature of American physician and historian Dr. Franklin James Didier. One of the single greatest influences on British Romanticism and the rise of the Gothic, Burke’s landmark essay was propelled by debates surrounding a 17th-century translation of the classical essay “On the Sublime.” His analysis of pleasure and fear became the first to carefully explore “the imaginative power of the unbounded and infinite, and the unstated and unknown” (Blackburn, 52). The Philosophical Enquiry much “anticipates the themes that dominate Burke’s political thinking throughout his career” (Yolton I, 144). This first edition, issued anonymously, was “a rather small edition, possibly like the Vindication limited to 500 copies.” First issue, first state, with the corrected “SECT. VI” on page 179, “SECT. VII” on page 180: both corrected late in the printing. No priority established as “most copies exhibit one mixture [of formes] or another” and none exist in a completely uncorrected state (Todd 5a). ESTC T42248. This association copy contains the contemporary owner signature of American physician, author and historian, Dr. Franklin James Didier, who was highly regarded for his work on Benjamin Franklin and an 1831 article in which he predicted the Civil War, “saying that the contention about slavery would be the cause of it” (Rutherford, 688). Later owner inkstamp. Interior very fresh with faintest soiling, expert repairs to joints, corners and spine ends of attractive contemporary tree calf. A very elusive near-fine copy. “The first and the simplest emotion which we discover in the human mind is Curiosity.” February 2022 – 11 – Bauman Rare Books
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