"ONE OF THE MOST UNUSUAL OF THE GREAT WRITERS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY"

BROWNE, Thomas. Works. Including His Life and Correspondence. Edited by Simon Wilkin. London: William Pickering, 1836-35. Four volumes. Octavo, full contemporary brown morocco, elaborately gilt-lettered spines, raised bands, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt. $1250.

Handsomely bound set of Browne's collected works.

The Works include biographical memoirs of Browne, his personal correspondence, the Religio Medici, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Garden of Cyrus, Hydriotaphia, Brampton Urns, Repertorium, A Letter to a Friend, Christian Morals, Miscellany Tracts and unpublished papers. "By turns credulous and skeptical, Sir Thomas Browne is one of the most unusual of the great writers of the seventeenth century… The Religio (his first book) is not, as its many imitators were to be, a defense of its author's calling, nor is it the expression of heterodox opinion… What he demands is the liberty to be guided by his own reason in cases where no exact guidance is laid down by Scripture or the teachings of the Church" (PMM 131). "His qualities served to foster a general interest in science and, above all, to illuminate thought by truth concerning the material world" (DSB 2, 523). With engraved frontispiece portrait of Browne, several engraved plates, fold-out genealogical charts and a facsimile of his last will and testament. With the bookplates of Vincent Starrett and Alexander Young, signed by Starrett on the half title of each volume.

A handsome set in very good condition.