Recherches sur l'origine du Despotisme Oriental. Ouvrage Posthume de Mr. B.I.D.P.E.C... Londres, Seyffert, 1762.
Second Edition; First Edition. Two volumes, 12mo, pp. xviii, [19]-264; xiv, [15]-216, folding engraved plate at ii, 94, in contemporary mottled calf, spines gilt in compartments with red morocco labels lettered and numbered in gilt, all edges red.
An important work, edited by Holbach, and first published in 1761, Boulanger's Recherches sur l'Origine du Despotisme Oriental was intended as an introduction and key to Montesquieu's Esprit des Loix. An important and widely-read treatise, it was incorporated in shortened form in the Encyclopédie, under the title 'Oeconomie politique'. It is offered here complete with the first edition of its companion volume, the so-called continuation by Boulanger, entitled Dissertation sur Elie et Enoch. The two volumes are uniformly bound and the second work comes complete with both the half-titles, the 'Dissertations' half-title and the additional half-title which links it to the Recherches, this latter being more often discarded. Included also in this volume (pp. 159-216) is Benjamin Stillingfleet's Traité Mathématique sur le Bonheur with an introductory letter by the translator, Etienne de Silhouette.
Recherches: see Cioranesco 13420.
Dissertation: Cioranesco 13421.