[TOUSSAINT, Francois-Vincent].Biblio.com
Les Mœurs.
595851748. One of the first editions. Small 8vo. 16 x 9.5 cm. pp.16474. Contemporary full French red morocco sides ruled with three gilt fillets spine with gilt foliate decorations each compartment with central fleuron device gilt to centre green morocco label with gilt lettering gilt inner dentelles blue-coated endpapers all edges gilt. Engraved frontispiece and 4 engraved vignettes one to title-page the others at the beginning of each of the three parts. Ex libris Sir Thomas Dawson Brodie 1832–1896 Scottish lawyer and peer and progenitor of the Scottish law firm Brodies with his bookplate to front pastedown; and ex libris Robert J. Hayhurst chemist and bibliophile with his bookplate to the front free endpaper. Hayhurst's extensive collection included well-preserved 18th-century bindings. Old bookseller's label of Kerr Richardson Glasgow to rear pastedown. Some light browning generally an excellent copy of this important Enlightenment work in handsome contemporary French binding. Originally attributed to Diderot with whom Toussaint was a close collaborator for the early volumes of the Encyclopédie Les Mœurs was the first work to openly formulate the morality of secular and humanitarian happiness and under the guise of a roman à clef to unapologetically promote a universal virtue freed from religion. It shook the foundations of French society and upon publication in 1748 and was promptly prosecuted banned and burned by the French court of justice. After its publication Toussaint was forced to free to Bruxelles and thence to Prussia where Frederick the Great offered his protection. The book had at least ten printings in the first year 1748 and thirty-eight by 1800. Along with Montesquieu's De l'esprit des loix 1748 and the Encyclopédie prospectus 1750 Toussaint's Les Mœurs was influential in crystallising the enlightenment ideas which would go on to influence the French Revolution. "Cet ouvrage dit Laharpe est le premier où l on se soit proposé un plan de morale naturelle indépendant de toute croyance religieuse et de tout culte extérieur. La nouveauté des idées dut contribuer à la vogue de ce livre" Drujon. Due to the book being banned upon its publication and reprinted numerous times in 1748 there appears to be little consensus regarding which is a true first edition. A copy at Alde appeared in 2020 and was described as "une des premières éditions si ce n'est la première" and another copy printed on large paper with an identical title-page and frontispiece to ours appeared at Christies in 2022 and was described as an "édition originale". 1748. unknown
Robert Frew Ltd · Royaume-Uni1 250,00 £GB≈ 1 427,25 €
