|
The Dictionary Historical and Critical Of Mr. Peter Bayle
BAYLE, Peter. The Dictionary Historical and Critical Of Mr. Peter Bayle. The Second Edition, Carefully collated with the Several Editions of the Original; in which many Passages are restored, and the whole greatly augmented, particularly with a Translation of the Quotations from eminent Writers in various Languages. To which is prefixed, The Life Of The Author, Revised, Corrected and Enlarged by Mr. Des Maizeaux.......
London: Printed for J.J. and P. Knapton..., 1734-1738. In five volumes. The Second and best edition. With an engraved frontispiece portrait of Bayle in volume one. Folio, full contemporary calf, raised bands, leather spine labels. With the titlepages printed in black and red.
Bookplates, this set has been professionally rebacked with the spines laid down. There is a 2 1/2 inch crack in the upper hinge of volume five, a piece chipped out of the head of the spine of volume two and some slight wear but this still very nice, clean, near fine set.
Pierre Bayle [1647-1706] born in France, son of a Calvinist minister. In 1671 to avoid persecution he fled to Geneva and in 1675 was appointed to the chair of philosophy at the Protestant university of Sedan. In 1681 Bayle was appointed professor of philosophy and history at Rotterdam. In 1682 he published his Pensees diverses sur la comete de 1680 and his critique of Maimbourg's work on Calvinism. In 1684 he began the publication of Nouvelles de la republique des lettres, a journal of literary criticism. His masterpiece was however, the above title, The Dictionary. "Although its articles about obscure ancient and modern figures sometimes contain little information of direct interest, Bayle used them as starting points for a complex series of endnotes, sidenotes and footnotes in which he addressed contemporary philosophical and theological concerns." The reaction to the Dictionary was instantaneous; Bayle was both famous and infamous. The work was placed on the Index by the Roman Catholic Church and condemned by the Dutch Reformed Church. It became, in the words of one critic, "the Bible of the eighteenth century." "Bayle's erudition seems to have been considerable. As a critic he was second to none in his own time, and even yet one can admire the delicacy and the skill with which he handles his subject." (Ency Brit).
.
$3000.00 (CAD)
|
