“THE MOST HUMAN OF ALL BOOKS”

AURELIUS ANTONINUS, Marcus. The XII Books of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, the Emperor. London: George Bell, 1900. Octavo, contemporary full brown morocco gilt, raised bands, top edge gilt, uncut. $6800.

Handsome edition of one of the world's great classics, number 143 of only 325 copies finely printed at the Chiswick Press, with photogravure frontispiece portrait, splendidly bound in full morocco-gilt by Riviere & Son.

The Meditations of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius "breathe the highest Stoical principles" (Blackburn, 30). "The thoughts of this philosopher-king have been considered by many generations one of the great books of all time… [and] the most human of all books" (Britannica). Wisdom, justice, fortitude and temperance are the qualities that Aurelius, stoic and practical moralist, identifies as most essential for co-existence; his writings represent an early and influential philosophy of humanism. His Meditations "are a collection of maxims and thoughts in the spirit of the Stoic philosophy, which… breathe the purist sentiments of piety and benevolence" (Peck, 90). "No one would now dare write a book like Marcus Aurelius' To Himself, or, as we call it in English, The Meditations, and present it to the world as philosophy. He didn't either. But once published, these, his most intimate thoughts, were considered among the most precious of all philosophical utterances by his contemporaries, by all Western Civilization after they returned to favor at the Renaissance, and most especially by the Victorian English, amongst whom The Meditations was a household book" (Rexroth, Classics Revisited, 112). Contained within this complete edition are all 12 books of the Meditations, in George Long's acclaimed English translation of 1862. Blind-embossed ownership stamp on title page.

Minor offsetting to endpapers and title page; slight toning to spine and board edges. A handsome, near-fine copy.