Adam FergusonBiblio.com
FERGUSON, AdamBiblio.com
The History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic.
178358904<p>FINE COPY IN A CONTEMPORARY BINDING - PROBABLY BY HENRY WALTHER</p><p>first edition 3 vols. large 4to. 28.3 x 23.5 cms. 12 461 1 blank; 4 548; 8 574pp. 6 engraved maps 4 folding contemporary rich tan lightly-diced russia calf over thick boards gilt fillet border on sides spines panelled by double gilt bands highlighted by gilt fillets and with a twisted gilt roll between them one panel with a dark brown morocco title label and another direct gilt numbered deep turn-ins on the doublures decoratively gilt rolled board edges with a double gilt line and twining frond gilt roll marbled endpapers edges dyed yellow minor paper flaw in the lower marginal corner of vol. 3 L4 slight rubbing to joints and a circa 6 cm. crack at foot of joints of vol. I a few minor scuffs at spine ends else a remarkably well preserved and internally fresh copy.</p><p>Ferguson 1723-1816 Professor at Edinburgh first of Natural Philosophy and later of Moral Philosophy was a significant member of the important eighteenth century Scottish school of enlightenment philosophers. He was a friend of such as David Hume Adam Smith Dugald Stewart and Black.<br />Ferguson's 'An Essay on the History of Civil Society' 1767 established his "reputation as a British and a European historian with a Scottish edge. It enabled him to deal with questions which concerned Enlightenment thinkers throughout Europe: the nature of political society differences between nations reflecting temporal and geographical variations patterns of progress and decline types of government and the tension between the 'private' man involved in commerce and polite conversation and 'public' man the politically active citizen. It made its author famous throughout Europe" O.D.N.B.<br />His "'History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic' narrating the rise and fall of the republic as a story of civic virtue and its corruption appeared in 1783 . It won praise from Edward Gibbon and went through two more English-language editions in 1799 and 1813. In the mid-nineteenth century it was still favourably mentioned by John Stuart Mill and reissued in the United States where Ferguson's spirited discussion of Rome's republican heyday appealed to two generations of readers. Two French translations appeared in Paris in 1784–91 and in 1803–10. A German translation appeared in Leipzig in 1784–6. . Although the fame of his Roman Republic was short-lived . it did more than any of Ferguson's books to determine its author's image as latter-day Roman a worthy if somewhat quaint lover of virtue and liberty in their classical republican sense. Contemporaries and posterity came to view him as a moralist of stout but old-fashioned Stoic convictions" O.D.N.B.<br />The binding is not signed but is certainly a contemporary English one probably the work of Henry Walther fl. 1775-1815 as it has his very characteristic double raised bands on the spines. Walther was one of the group of highly skilled emigré German binders' who worked in Britain at this period. He had in his earlier years in London worked for J. Baumgarten another member of that group before he set up there on his own as a high quality binder. In this binding the boards project about 7 to 8 mm. beyond the text block at the top and bottom to expose the gilt rolled tooling on the turn-ins. The double raised bands themselves are separated by 8 mm. are defined by a gilt fillet above and below the pair have a narrow gilt roll along their tops and have a twisted-pair gilt roll in the space between the two bands. The binding was probably intentionally designed to echo the spirit of its content - serious sombre magisterial and definitely not showy.</p> Printed for W. Strahan, T. Cadell ,,, and W. Creech in Edinburgh hardcover
P & B Rowan · Royaume-Uni2 500,00 £GB≈ 2 854,50 €
