Product code: Extremely Rare 1795 Political purchases Book on Despotism
This is a beautifully bound & extremely rare copy of the first American edition of the famed 18th-century English minister and political essayist & author Vicesimus Knox (1752-1821). This book, "The Spirit of Despotism," was a discourse on the abuse of political power by rulers & officials & was influential to many political leaders in both England & the new United States. Knox privately published the first purchases London edition in 1795, but then destroyed most of the copies, leaving this edition, printed in Philadelphia in 1795 by Lang & Ustick and Mathew Carey, as the first edition. On 12 January 1801, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Mathew Carey, "You often quote a book under the title of the Spirit of Despotism. I never before heard of it: but it is written with great strength of feeling & conception." Measures 4.5" wide x 6.75" high x 1" thick. Weight about 9 oz. Bound in smooth calfskin, title in red Morocco leather & gilt letters on spine. Cracking on spine, scuffing & some leather chipping.
This is a beautifully bound & extremely rare copy of the first American edition of the famed 18th-century English minister and political essayist & author Vicesimus Knox (1752-1821). This book, "The Spirit of Despotism," was a discourse on the abuse of political power by rulers & officials & was influential to many political leaders in both England & the new United States. Knox privately published the first purchases London edition in 1795, but then destroyed most of the copies, leaving this edition, printed in Philadelphia in 1795 by Lang & Ustick and Mathew Carey, as the first edition. On 12 January 1801, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Mathew Carey, "You often quote a book under the title of the Spirit of Despotism. I never before heard of it: but it is written with great strength of feeling & conception." Measures 4.5" wide x 6.75" high x 1" thick. Weight about 9 oz. Bound in smooth calfskin, title in red Morocco leather & gilt letters on spine. Cracking on spine, scuffing & some leather chipping.