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125 PAINE, Thomas. Rights of Man: Being an Answer to Mr. Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution. London: printed for J. S. Jordan, 1791 Fifth edition of Paine’s great defense of the inalienable rights of the people and their right to revolution when governments do not uphold these rights, a very elegant copy, in an unusually fine binding for such radical literature. Written in response to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France , the founding text of modern conservative thought, Paine defends the French Revolution and proposes reforms to Britain’s own system. The work was first printed by Joseph Johnson in early 1791. Octavo (212 × 124 mm). Contemporary red levant morocco, spine lettered in gilt and divided into compartments with urn motifs and roundel cornerpieces, single fillet rule border to covers, Greek-roll to inner dentelles in gilt, marbled endpapers, edges gilt, green cloth bookmarker. A finely bound copy, spine faintly sunned and a few spots of rubbing to extremities, one shallow scratch to rear cover, free endpapers a little browned, else the contents crisp and clean, stab- holes visible. ¶ Audrey Williamson, Thomas Paine: His Life, Work, and Times , Allen & Unwin, 1973. £2,750 [127289]
124 OWEN, Robert. The Life of Robert Owen. London: Effingham Wilson, 1857–58 Complete with the scarce second volume First edition of the autobiography of the utopian thinker and social reformer Robert Owen, complete with the scarce appendix volume; no further volumes were published. The autobiography was published in Owen’s 87th year, but was probably written much earlier, perhaps when he was planning the writing of his memoirs in 1835. The first volume takes the story of his life to the early 1820s, the appendix volume, numbered “I A”, contains reprints of early pieces by Owen and others. 2 volumes, octavo (212 × 132 and 215 × 138 mm). Vol. 1: Contemporary blue half calf, red morocco label, marbled sides, endpapers, and edges. Vol. 1a: Original purple cloth, spine and front cover lettered in gilt, decorative border blind-stamped to covers, yellow endpapers. Folding engraved plate in supplement. Expert restoration to vol. 1a at extremities and recolouring to leather to vol. 1, thus presenting well, contents clean. A very good set. ¶ NLW 102 & 110. £2,750 [87786]
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Peter Harrington
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