61 “The Most Worthy… Of The Great Philosophers”: Beautiful 1768 Edition Of Locke’s Collected Works 68LOCKE, John. The Works. London, 1768. Four volumes. Large quarto, period-style full marbled calf gilt. $7500 Seventh edition, the first quarto edition, first four-volume edition, of Locke’s collected Works, with copper-engraved frontispiece portrait, a handsomely bound set. “Locke had a formative influence on the principles of the Declaration of Independence and of the early state constitutions” (Covenanted People 37). Jefferson, who had a fifth edition of the Works in his library, “ranked Locke with Bacon and Newton as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception” (Sowerby 1362; emphasis in original). This massive first quarto edition contains the immensely important Two Treatises of Government, “the basis of the principles of democracy,” as well as Locke’s letters on Toleration and The Reasonableness of Christianity. Also included is the groundbreaking Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, “the first modern attempt” to analyze human knowledge (PMM 193, 194). “John Locke is the most worthy… of the indisputably great philosophers. His influence has been enormous.” Second issue with title pages reading “Volume the First” (“Second,” “Third,” “Fourth”) among other minor changes. “The first collected edition [in three folio volumes] bears the publication date of 1714” (Yolton, 400). Yolton 369. Only very infrequent minor marginal soiling. A handsomely bound set in fine condition. “Perhaps The Most Wonderful ‘Mine Of Ideas’ In Existence”: First Edition In English Of Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra 69 NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for All and None. London, 1896. Octavo, original dark green cloth. $5500 First edition in English, English issue, of Nietzsche’s magnum opus—“the first comprehensive statement of his mature philosophy”— in original cloth. Nietzsche’s powerful, philosophical prose-poem ranks as “perhaps the most wonderful ‘mine of ideas’ in existence” (Seymour-Smith, 100 Most Influential Books 79). In its pages Nietzsche announces the “death of God” and heralds the advent of the übermensch, the “superman”—”not the ‘blond beast’ of later fascism; it is a human being who has mastered passion, risen above the senseless flux and given creative style to his or her character” (Blackburn, 262). Although it would become his most famous work, Nietzsche’s philosophical prose-poem was largely unnoticed when it first appeared. Having published Parts 1-3 in 1883-84 at his own expense, the greatly discouraged author privately published only a few copies of Part 4 in 1891. The complete work, “the first comprehensive statement of his mature philosophy” (Edwards V:509), was first published in 1892. Also issued in New York by Macmillan in the same year, priority undetermined. Text fine, inner hinges and rear endpapers with expert paper repairs. Cloth with only most minor rubbing.
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