David Hume

Finely bound and restored first edition set of Hume's History of England.

• Sold as a set of 6.
• David Hume (Scottish).
• The History of England, from the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Accession of Henry VII; under the House of Tudor; the Revolution in 1688.
• Edinburgh: Printed by Hamilton, Balfour, and Neill; London: Printed for A. Millar, 1754–1762.
• Quarto.
• pp.viii; 424; pp.viii; 446 [2]; pp.[2] viii; 402 [2]; pp.[2] iv; 403–739 [3], pp.vi; 473 [1]; pp.[2] vi; 452. W
• Includes the half-title to volumes I, II and III (not required for IV, V and VI).
• Bound in contemporary tan full speckled calf boards, recently rebacked in matching calf, with gilt titles to contrasting red and black labels, and further gilt tooling to spines, all edges speckled red.

Written in four discrete segments totaling six volumes between 1754 and 1762, Hume’s great survey of English history stands alongside Gibbon’s History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire as one of the defining works of Enlightenment literature. Between 1754 and 1757, Hume published the “modern” portion of his history, which was to become volumes V and VI of the finished series, printed on title page as “Vol. I” and “Vol. II.” The remaining stock of the first volume, published in Edinburgh and entitled The History of Great Britain, was taken over in 1756 by the London publisher Millar, who then undertook the printing of the second volume and followed through covering the subsequent installments. Hume's reverse procedure took him from the accounts of the times of James II back to Julius Caesar's England, and the project was completed in 1762.