Property from Historic Hudson Valley

DIDEROT, DENIS and D'ALEMBERT, JEAN LE ROND

Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Paris & Neuchâtel: 1751-77. First edition. Thirty-five large folio volumes bound (excepting one volume, see condition note) most in 18th-century French brown calf, spines gilt with raised bands. Consisting of: Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences et et des métiers. Paris: 1751-57 & Neuchâtel, 1765. 17 volumes; Recueil de planches. Paris: 1762-72. Eleven volumes (1, 2 part I, 2 Part II, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11). Supplément à l'Encyclopédie. Amsterdam: 1776-77. Five volumes, including the accompanying Suite de recueil de planches. Paris & Amsterdam: 1777; Table Analytique. Paris: 1780. 15 3/8 x 9 1/2 inches (39.5 x 25 cm); profusely illustrated with engraved plates. The bindings are attractive overall but with some degree of wear, a few scrapes etc., and some of the volumes differ in spine design or cover treatment (this is understandable in a set bound over many years, but in this case it may be indicative of an assembled set). One volume of the plates is in a later binding, which is worn. There are occasional pale damp stains, these generally marginal, and some worming to a small section of plates in the natural history volume. The plate of the flea is linen-backed. The set is sold as-is, not subject to return.

The Diderot Encyclopédie is one of the foremost documents of the French Enlightenment. It was the most ambitious work of its kind in the 18th century, and is considered "A monument in the history of European thought; the acme of the age of reason; a prime motive force in undermining the ancien regime and in heralding the French Revolution" (Printing in the Mind of Man, 200). Begun in 1745 as an effort to print a French edition of Chambers' 1728 English Cyclopedia, the scope of the work quickly expanded and caused a sensation, both in France as each volume was published. Despite efforts to suppress its publication, the work continued to be published by Le Breton until 1765, at which time it was handed to Panckoucke, who continued the work until its completion in 1780. Grolier/Horblit 25b; Norman 637; PMM 200.