Hume, David
Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects
£693
Rare Books, Manuscripts, Maps & Photographs
Auction: 8 February 2023 at 10:00 GMT
Description
A New Edition. London: for A. Millar, and A. Kincaid and A. Donaldson, at Edinburgh, 1760. 4 volumes, 12mo (16.2 x 9.5cm), contemporary calf, pp. [4] 395, [4] 379, [4] 299, [6] 352, covers detached, loss to headcaps, variable spotting and browning, nicks and chips to title-pages of volumes 2 and 4 [ESTC T33490]
Footnote
Note:
Scarce lifetime edition of Hume's Essays, with ownership inscriptions 'John Scott, 1790' and roundel bookplates of the Scott family to volumes one, three and four. This is almost certainly John Scott, first earl of Eldon (1751-1833), lord chancellor from 1801 to 1827. In 1790 he was serving as solicitor general. 'The years of essay writing, between the "failure" of the Treatise and the publication of the Political Discourses, had seen Hume cover an extraordinary amount of intellectual ground. But it had still not brought him commercial success. When this finally arrived, it was through the initiative of his publisher, Andrew Millar. In 1753 Millar put together a cheap, four-volume duodecimo edition of Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects, in which the Philosophical Essays and the Enquiry Concerning Morals were placed between the Essays, Moral and Political and the Political Discourses. Though Hume did not immediately appreciate it, the effect of the edition was to enable his political essays to act as he had once hoped, "like Dung with Marle", and draw attention to his philosophy in a format which for the first time was both accessible and calculated to encourage sales' (ODNB).