Lettres sur l'histoire.

2 vol., 8vo: front.-xxiii-[1 bl.]-330-[2 bl.]-8-[3-1 bl.]-xii-81-[3], [4]-343-[1 bl.]-18-[4]-52 pp. (light damp stain at fore-edge margin of vol. 2, some minor spotting).

Contemp. marbled calf (rubbed, some sm. def.), gilt spines with 5 raised bands (sm. def. at head), red leather title labels. Good copy.

First French translation of "Letters on the study and use of history", by the English philosopher, politician and Tory leader Henry St John, 1st Viscount Bolingbroke (1678-1751). First printed privately before his death, but posthumously published in the same year as the original edition (London 1752), and already written in the 1730s in the castle of Argeville, near Fontainebleau. Ill. with engr. author's portrait. Contains, with separate title and pagination, also "Reflexions sur l'exil" (vol. 1) and "Lettre de mylord Bolingbroke, a mylord Bathurst sur le véritable usage de la retraite & de l'etude" (vol. 2).
Ref. Barbier II:1292. - Conlon 52:454. - BnF.