Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une societé de gens de lettres. Mis en ordre & publié par M. Diderot [...]; & quant à la partie mathematique, par M. d'Alembert [...].

35 vol., folio (text: n.c., sl. offsetting of the front., foxing, sometimes extensive, some pp. and pl. sl. browned, marg. damp stains in begin. vol. III of Suppl., and vol. VIII of plates, occ. marg. stains).

Contemp. mottled calf, gilt-orn. spines with labels, red edges (sl. rubbed, occ. scratches - strong on vol. XII of plates -, some def. on endcaps, some joints part. split, corners bumped, skillful restorations on some vol., occ. stains).

First folio reprint of the Encyclopédie, printed during the 1770s in Geneva for Charles-Joseph Panckoucke, with the consent of the original's main printer-bookseller André François Le Breton. Copy with the Geneva ed. of the 17 vol. of text and 11 vol. of plates (same dates and imprints as the Paris original edition, 1751-1772), and with the first ed. of the 4 vol. of suppl. (I-III: Amst., M.-M. Rey; IV: ibid. and Paris, Panckoucke, Stoupe, Brunet), the 2 vol. of tables (Paris, Panckoucke and Amst., M.-M. Rey), and the only published suppl. vol. of plates ("Suite du recueil de planches [...]", Paris, Panckoucke, Stoupe, Brunet; Amst., M.M. Rey, 1777). The 11 vol. of plates have 2.568 engr. pl. (full-page, double-page or folding), the suppl. vol. of plates has 215 engr. pl. (full-page or double-page), totalling 2.783 engr. pl. (according to the tables and the "Avis aux relieurs", only pl. XXI of Anatomy in vol. I of "Planches" is missing). Our copy is complete with the allegorical front. after Cochin (1764) and engr. by Prevost (1776; orig. 1772), publ. separetely, and the 3 plates "Hermaphrodites", all often missing. With 7 fold. tables i.a. "Systeme figuré des connoissances humaines" in vol. I of text. Enriched with 4 portraits by Henriquez (in front. of vol. II-V: Diderot, D'Alembert, Voltaire, Montesquieu) and 1 pl. of geography not in the table (vol. V of pl.). "A monument in the history of European thought; the acme of the age of reason; a prime motive force in undermining the ancien régime and in heralding the French Revolution; a permanent source for all aspects of eighteenth-c. civilization [...] The Encyclopédie of Diderot and d'Alembert remained, and remains, unique" (PMM). After the Geneva reprint, various ed. were publ. in various formats, in Lucca, Livorno, Lausanne, etc.
Ref. Lough 15-21. - Adams G5. - Cp. Printing and the mind of man 200, En français dans le texte 156.