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Two important articles written by Diderot for the Encyclopédie and bound here in modern green vellum. The first article in the volume was originally entitled ‘Beau’ in the Encyclopédie (tome II, 1751) and this is the first appearance under this title and the first printing of both essays outside the Encyclopédie.
In this key work on aesthetics, Diderot discusses many writers - Crouzas, Hutcheson, Wolf - but acknowledges a superior debt to Yves-Marie André, who has ‘most furthered the understanding of this subject... and formed the truest and most solid principles’. Diderot echoes André’s work when he explores the relationship between feeling and beauty: ‘But tell me, is a thing beautiful because it pleases, or does it please because it is beautiful? There is no problem; it pleases because it is beautiful’. Diderot’s essay brings together his first-hand knowledge of artists and their work (learnt from friends like Chardin and Falconet as well as from his experience as critic of the Salons), with a broader moral and civic aesthetic in which art becomes an instrument of social change.
Diderot’s essay De la philosophie des Chinois was the second of two entries on China supplied by Diderot for the Encyclopédie. The first one, ‘Chine’, concentrated on the known facts and merits of China and its culture. By contrast, this essay was a virulent attack both on the Jesuits and on the idolatry and superstitions of the Chinese. Criticising the Sinophilia prevalent in France at the time, Diderot argues that much of what was praised about Chinese culture was based on unreliable translations and he presents in its place a poor picture of an idle, idolatrous and uncivilised nation.
Traité du beau and De la philosophie des Chinois were first reprinted as part of the third volume of the first collected edition of Diderot’s works, Œuvres philosophiques et dramatiques, Amsterdam 1772, from which these two titles have been taken. Given the modern binding, it is impossible to know if it was originally bound and offered for sale separately or if it was extracted more recently. Adams notes that individual volumes of this six volume collected works as well as works within the volumes were frequently offered separately.
‘On trouve souvent imprimés à part les volumes de cette édition, qui furent mis en vente tels quels à l’époque, sans le faux-titre et le titre général et avec le titre particulier seulement. Parfois, les œuvres dont se composent certains volumes furent également détachés et mises en vente’ (Adams, I, p.84).
Adams also notes a German translation of De la philosophie des Chinois by Johann Jakob Engel which was published in Philosophische Werke des Herrn Diderot, Leipzig, 1774.

A lovely fine-paper copy of this important illustrated work on varnishes. Pierre François Tingry was a Geneva pharmacist who worked in minerology, botany and applied chemistry and is credited with the discovery of Epsom salts. His detailed work on varnishes and their application became a standard text book, was translated into both English and German in 1804, and saw several reprints of the French text. ‘A comprehensive treatise on the preparation and use of varnishes, paints and colors. Tingry gives descriptions and results of his many experiments and, in general, supplies the principles and operations which were missing in Jean Félix Watin’s L’art de faire et d’employer le vernis, Paris 1772, to which there are frequent references.’ (Cole 1287 describing the English edition.)
Printed on thick, light blue paper, this copy is suitably bound in an attractive and well-executed contemporary binding with mottled boards, contrasting orange and black spine labels and stylish gilding. This fine paper copy feels significantly more luxurious than the standard issue. The British Library copy, which is on thinner, white paper, measures a total combined thickness for the text block of both volumes of 38.5mm compared to our a total thickness of 51 mm in the present copy (BL 18.5 & 20 mm vs. 26 & 25 mm), being about a third thicker than the ordinary copies.

A scarce and delightful work by the prolific Della Torre Rezzonico, writing under the pastoral pseudonym of Dorillo Dafneio. Produced at the press of Giambattista Bodoni (1740-1813), this is one of numerous occasional publications, adorned with handsome engraved typographical ornaments, which he printed at the Royal Press of Duke Ferdinand of Parma and the Archduchess of Austria, Maria Amalia. Count Carlo Gastone dell Torre di Rezzonico was the darling of Roman society, a member of the Roman Accademia dell’Arcadia and a fashionable and accomplished poet, amateur musician and the organiser of legendary court parties. The philosophical, ornate verse in this collection, dedicated to Ferdinand and Maria Amalia, was typical of the Count’s activity at the court of Parma; for this work he was appointed chamberlain and colonel.

First edition of this comprehensive biography and bibliography of Giammaria Mazzuchelli (1707-1765). He is mostly remembered for his vastly ambitious work, the Scrittori d’Italia, 1753-1763, which, though it only extended to the first two letters of the alphabet, was widely praised for its biographical and bibliographical detail. In addition to his work as literary historian, Mazzuchelli was also an important cultural figure, as is clear from the list of his correspondents, which include Carli, Beccaria, Belgrado, Maffei, Muratori, Volpi and Tiraboschi. For a Brescia printing, it is also worth noting that Mazzuchelli was the founder of the Academia Mazzuchelliana, the Brescia literary society.

A scarce French edition of this highly entertaining travel diary by the intrepid Lady Craven. Written as a series of letters to the Margrave of Ansbach-Bayreuth, who later became her husband, Craven’s lively account of a journey across much travelled Europe into less travelled eastern Europe and on into the Middle East brought her much acclaim as a pioneer among women travellers. ‘[Her travels] caused Lady Craven to encounter people she had never met, to discover landscapes she had never seen and landscapes she was not used to. The accounts she gives of her experience are a wealth of information on her general perception of the unknown and her personal evolution in the course of this journey’ (Palma). This edition is probably a pirated edition, published in the same year as the first French edition, but without the map or plates.
Bound after the Craven is a scarce guide to the Greek islands, attributed to Hendrik Frieseman, giving details on the population, principal towns, ports and monasteries and the chief trade or commodity of the islands. Geographical detail is also given, with a fairly subjective approach, hence Santorini: ‘Cette isle connue autrefois sous le nom de Thera & Calliste, c’est à-dire très-belle, ne mérite plus ce beau nom: elle n’est aujourd’hui autre chose qu’une carriere de pierre ponce. Ses côtes sont si affreuses, qu’on ne fait de quel côté les aborder; il y a toute apparence que ce font les tremblemens de terre qui les ont rendues inaccessibles. Son port ne pouroit être d’aucune utilité, n’ayant point de font du tout’.

The scarce first edition of a popular travel journal by the French naturalist Charles Nicolas Sigisbert Sonnini de Mononcourt, mostly remembered for his contributions to Buffon’s Histoire naturelle, 1802-1803, in particular the volume devoted to reptiles. This is an attractive set of the text volumes only of his history of Greece and Turkey. A quarto atlas volume was published with the text but is often, as here, missing.
‘L’honorable réception de mon Ouvrage sur l’Egypte a surpassé mes esperances... Ce n'était pas un travail dépourvu d'intérêt que celui d'une description de quelques parties de l'Asie et de l'ancienne Grèce, qui renfermât la connaissance de leur climat, de leur sol, de leurs productions, de leur histoire naturelle, de leur état actuel de dépérissement de leurs ressources, de la peinture des moeurs, des coutumes, du génie des peuples qui les habitent, qui offrît un rapprochement curieux entre leur situation de quelques siècles et celle de nos jours. Outre les Cyclades ou îles de l'Archipel, mes observations se porteront sur l'île de Candie, quelques parties de la Turquie dans l'Asie mineure, la Macédoine, la Morée ont été également le but de mes démarches comme seront ici l'objet de mes récits’ (pp. 5-6).

Gulliver's Travels was an overnight best-seller in France. Following swiftly on the publication of the English text in late October 1726, the first French language edition, by an anonymous translator, appeared in the Hague in January 1727. This Desfontaines translation followed some three months later, in April 1727. Although it was less faithful to the original, being heavily abridged and at times almost closer to an adaptation than a translation, it was in Desfontaines’ version that Gulliver took France by storm. This is the first issue of the first appearance of that translation and the first publication of Gulliver in France. The Privilège du Roy, advertised at the foot of the imprint, had been granted to Hypolite-Louis Guérin on 20th March 1727. On the following day he shared it with two other local printers: 'faisant part du present Privilege aux Sieurs Gabriel Martin & Jacques Guérin'. Accordingly, the same printing of this first edition appears with two other imprints on the titles of both volumes.
It was in this translation by Desfontaines’ that Swift’s work had a profound influence on French literature: ‘this shoddy but elegantly written version was repeatedly reissued in France well into the late 19th century, with a record 180 editions by the 1920s’ (Paul-Gabriel Boucé). Desfontaines went on to write his famous continuation, Le Nouveau Gulliver, which was also very popular and in turn saw translations into English, German and Italian. Graebar, who says that Desfontaines’ translation ‘outshines all later ones’, suggests that it was partly the abridged nature of Desfontaines’ version that ensured its success: ‘by reducing it to the expectations of his addressees, an approach that proved immediately as well as lastingly successful’.

A popular book of essays by the pacifist and enlightened educationalist, Vicesimus Knox. Following his degree at St. John’s College, Oxford, where he became a fellow and took orders, he became headmaster of Tonbridge School, taking over from his father who was suffering poor health. A charismatic headmaster whose works on practical education were very popular, the numbers of boys on the roll rose from 20 to 80 during his long tenure there (he was headmaster for 34 years), but they began to fall back again on account of his very public criticism of British foreign policy in a series of articles written for the Morning Chronicle and a number of sermons preached in Brighton on the subject of pacifism. ‘Offensive war’, he argued, was ‘at once detestable, deplorable and ridiculous’ and he criticised the ‘military machine’ as being created by a corrupt administration.
Knox’ political views grew out of his ‘benign religious vision’ (ODNB), which also informed his educational and conduct writings, such as the present collection. As an essayist, his style is easily accessible and he believed it to be the best genre for communicating his ideal of civic sensibility to the middle classes: ‘I address not my book to systematical and metaphysical doctors, to deep, erudite, and subtle sages, but to those who, without pretending to be among the seven wise men (a later edition adds ‘the liberal merchant, the inquisitive manufacturer, the country gentleman and the various persons who fill the most useful departments in life’) have no objection to kill a little time, by perusing at their leisure the pages of a modern volume’ (I, x).
The third volume has a diverting chapter, ‘Of Reading Novels and trifling Books without Discrimination’, in which Knox, well known for his dismissal of sentimental novels and his attacks on the morality of Sterne’s Sentimental Journey, satirises the world of the circulating library: ‘I have smiled at hearing a lady admire the delicacy of sentiment which the author of some novel, which she had just been reading, must possess, though I knew it to be the production of some poor hireling, destitute of learning and taste, knowledge of life and manners, and furnished with the few ideas he had by reading the novels of a few preceding years. He had inserted in the title-page, ‘By a Lady’, and various conjectures were often hazarded in my hearing concerning the authoress. Some hinted that they were acquainted with her, and that it was a lady of quality. Others knew it to be written by an acquaintance of their own; while all agreed in asserting, it must be by a lady, the sentiments were so characteristically delicate and refined. You may conjecture how much I was disposed to laugh when I knew it to be the production of a comb-maker in Black Boy Alley’ (III, 151-152).
This was a popular work, with a Dublin edition published in the same year and further London editions in 1790 and 1795. A ‘Basil’ edition was published by James Decker in conjunction with the Paris booksellers Levrault frères, in 1800 and it was reprinted as part of Robert Lynam’s British Essayists, vols. xxix and xxx, London, 1827.

A scarce illustrated edition of Voltaire’s philosophical novel, printed in London for Gaetano Polidori (1764-1853), father of John William Polidori and grandfather of Dante Gabriel and Christina Rossetti. Gaetano Polidori came to London in 1790 where he taught Italian as well as translating a number of works into Italian, including Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. He published a number of works, including those of his grandchildren, and set up a private press in his house in London.
This is a delightful pocket edition of Voltaire’s enlightenment tale, first published in a slightly shorter form under the title Memnon in Amsterdam, 1747, with the full text appearing in the following year under the title Zadig. Second only to Candide among Voltaire’s contes philosophiques, and based on the Persian tale The Three Princes of Serendip, Voltaire uses the oriental setting to explore religious and metaphysical orthodoxy through the moral development of the protagonist. The oriental backdrop allows for thinly disguised references to the political and social problems of contemporary France.
The text is accompanied by a very attractive suite of thirteen aquatint plates and two vignettes drawn and engraved by Le Cœur. ‘Jolie petite édition peu commune de ce roman. Les figures existent imprimées en couleurs’ (Cohen-de Ricci).