Philosemitic works

[Toland, John.] Reasons for Naturalizing the Jews in Great Britain and Ireland...containing also, a defence of the Jews against all vulgar prejudices in all countries. For J. Roberts, 1714-- Cantabrigiensis, Theophanes. The Ancient History of the Hebrews Vindicated... Cambridge: for W. Thurlbourn, W. Innys and J. Beecroft, 1741--Ben Israel, Rabbi Manasseh. Vindiciae Judaeorum: or, a letter in answer to certain questions propounded by a noble and learned gentleman, touching the reproaches cast on the nation of the Jews. W. Bickerton, 1743--Lardner, Nathaniel. The Circumstances of the Jewish People...1743; and one other; 8vo, eighteenth-century quarter calf, marbled boards (spine numbered 59), some staining, some wear to binding (1)

The Forbes Baronetcy was created in 1626 for Sir William Forbes (d. circa 1650) by James VI in the Barontage of Nova Scotia. The majority of the works offered here were acquired by the sixth Baronet, also William (1739-1806), who added Pitsligo to his title in 1781. He was an eminent Scottish banker and benefactor, good friend of James Boswell and Samuel Johnson (see lots 45-46), and finally succeeded in recovering the Pitsligo estates forfeited after the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. His son William, the seventh baronet, beat Sir Walter Scott to the hand of the renowned beauty Williamina Belsches Stuart (1776-1810), and it was with their marriage that the family moved to her family seat, Fettercairn House in Kincardineshire, Aberdeenshire.

One of the sixth baronet’s acquisitions for his library at Pitsligo were numerous highly important miscellanies and tract volumes, many of which were purchased as a set from Edinburgh bookseller Elphinstone Balfour in October 1786. These were subsequently supplemented by further contemporary tracts and other works from the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century. Most of these miscellanies bear a nineteenth century Forbes family bookplate.