SPINOZA, Baruch. Opera posthuma, Quorum series post Praefationem exhibetur…
[Amsterdam], [Jan Rieuwertsz], 1677.
£ 18,000
FIRST EDITION. Small 4to (20.5 x 15.5 cm); Two parts in one: (1) pp. [xl], 614, [34]; (2) pp. 112, [8] (3 pp. errata at end). General t-page with woodcut ornament; second part with half-title; a few woodcut illustrations and diagrams in text, woodcut decorative initials. Ex-libris of Gaddesden Library on first flyleaf. This issue is without the portrait but this is not considered a fault. Some later pencil underlining throughout. Occasional foxing and light staining, lightly browned. Contemporary speckled calf; tooled blind-stamped decoration; spine in compartments with red leather label, gilt title and date; joints just starting, but holding firm; rubbed, particularly the joints; red speckled edges. An excellent copy in original condition. Translated from the Dutch.
Bibliography: Caillet 10309; Norman 1988; PMM 153; Van der Linde 22
First edition of Spinoza’s most influential philosophical work, Ethics, the modern classic of pantheism which had a long-standing and important influence on the development of German Romanticism and on the philosophy of Schelling and Hegel.