"SUPERIOR TO EVERY ORATOR, ANCIENT OR MODERN": 1792 FIRST COLLECTED EDITION OF THE WORKS OF SIR EDMUND BURKE
BURKE, Edmund. The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke. London: J. Dodsley, 1792. Three volumes. Tall quarto (8-1/2 by 11 inches), contemporary full brown tree calf, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, red morocco spine labels.
First collected edition of the Works of Edmund Burke, three impressive volume containing his important writings on the American and the French Revolutions as well as his seminal philosophical works, a handsome wide-margined copy in contemporary tree calf.
This major collection of Burke's Works features his influential writings on the American Revolution, Speech on American Taxation and Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents, along with his seminal Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. To Burke, in both his political life and writings, any "absorption with the end and neglect of the means was the most dreadful of sins"—that bedrock conviction provoked his famous Reflections on the Revolution in France (PNN 239). This targeting of the French Revolution "infuriated Paine, who… rushed into print with his even more celebrated answer, The Rights of Man" (Gimbel-Yale 58-59). Burke was, in Macaulay's words, "that great master of eloquence… in aptitude of comprehension and richness of imagination, superior to every orator, ancient or modern." His life "was devoted to five 'great, just and honorable causes': the emancipation of the House of Commons from the control of George III; the emancipation of the American colonies; the emancipation of Ireland; the emancipation of India from the misgovernment of the East India Company; and opposition to the atheistical Jacobism displayed in the French Revolution. As a writer and orator he won admiration from all sides" (Drabble, 78). This three-volume set is the first collected edition of Burke's works, appearing in May 1792. Additional volumes of his writings were issued separately up to the eighth and last volume in June 1827. Todd 79a (1-3). ESTC T52808. Lowndes 316. Shelf numbers on front pastedowns.
Interior fresh with lightest scattered foxing mainly to preliminaries, expert restoration to joints and spine ends. A near-fine copy in contemporary tree calf.