Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemens & du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes.

The Hague, Chez Gosse, Fils, 1774.. First edition thus. 7 volumes. 8°, contemporary French green morocco, possibly by Derome (somewhat faded and worn, spines chipped at heads, some hinges slightly cracked, other trifling binding defects), gilt-tooled smooth spines, sides with a gilt triple fillet border with corner rosettes, inner dentelles gilt, crimson endleaves, all text-block edges gilt. Printed on thick bluish Dutch paper of excellent quality. Internally very fine; overall in very good condition. From the library of M. de Roissy, Maréchal-de-camp, with his name in a contemporary or slightly later hand at the back of each volume. xii, 604; viii, 434; xii, 612; viii, 417; xii, 416; viii, 406; viii, 448 pp. Portrait, 7 plates and 7 folding maps [3 of the maps repeated, apparently as issued]. *** Seventh edition? Revised and expanded, with maps added, this is the first of the second (of four) main groups of editions as classified by Feugère. Eventually, at least 38 French and other language editions appeared. From its initial edition in 1770 until 1780, the Histoire philosophique underwent continued transformations. Almost all, if not all, editions contain modifications. The evolution of the various editions is of considerable interest.The engraved portrait is of Raynal. The seven engraved frontispieces show Europeans interacting with indigenous peoples (often violently) in the Far East, Africa, and the Americas. The background often includes houses or huts and a shore with ships or boats.The folding maps are repeated so the reader need not have more than one volume open at once. Volumes I and II have maps of the world. Volumes III and IV have maps of the Americas from Florida to Cape Horn, plus the west coast of Africa. Volume V has a map of the Gulf of Mexico. Volumes VI and VII have maps of North America."No event has been so interesting to mankind in general, and to the inhabitants of Europe in particular, as the discovery of the New World, and the passage to India by the Cape of Good Hope." With these words, the Abbé Raynal began his classic "Philosophical and Political History of European Settlement and Trade in the Two Indies." First published in 1770, the Histoire became a major vehicle for the spread of the liberal political ideas that appeared in the national revolutions of France, British North America, and all of Latin America. Today, the work offers a vivid mirror of the eighteenth-century mind as it reflected on the evils Europeans had wrought through slavery in the Americas and exploitation in the East Indies.In many ways the impact of Raynal on Western culture has yet to be measured completely. He is overshadowed by such heroes of the Enlightenment as Diderot, who wrote a considerable part of the work (perhaps as much as a third), Holbach, and Alexandre Deleyte. Ironically, Paulize, the fermier-général of taxes, also collaborated in the production of this book. Interesting observations concerning the Spanish and Portuguese colonies were provided by the Counts of Aranda and Souza, respectively. But there is ample evidence that to his contemporaries Raynal was the pure symbol of liberty, equality, and their attendant virtues.Anti-clerical bias permeated Raynal's writing, and in 1774 the Holy See placed his Histoire on the Index. In 1779 the introduction of the Histoire into France was interdicted, and the public executioner burned the volumes. Although Raynal's arrest was ordered, he managed to escape.The best authority on Raynal is Anatole Feugère, Um Precurseur de la Révolution, l'Abbé Raynal (Angouleme, 1922). For the revisions and augmentations of the different editions of his work, see also Feugère, Bibliographie critique de l'Abbé Raynal (Angouleme, 1922). On Diderot's role, see J. Morley, Diderot and the Encyclopedists (London 1923). *** Feugère, Bibliographie critique 36. Palau 248667 (without collation). Sabin 68080n. JFB R53. Barbier II, 823-4. Nicholson Catalogue of Pre-1900 Imprints Relating to America in the Royal Library, Brussels R55 (volume V only). Clark, Old South, I, 292 (6). Peignot, Dictionnaire des livres condamnés au feu, II, 71. Bujanda, Index Librorum Prohibitorum, 1600-1966, p. 744. This edition not in Brunet or Grasse. Cf. Borba de Moraes for a lavish (and certainly much more common) edition of 1780. See also Salone, Guillaume Raynal, Historien du Canada (Paris 1905); and Michel Delon, En Français dans le texte, 166. This edition not located in Hollis, Catnyp, Josiah, Melvyl, or the online catalogues of Universiteit Utrecht or the Royal Library, the Hague (which has a set with the same imprint but with a different collation [catalogued as possibly a false imprint], as well as an odd copy of vol. II without collation, and another odd copy of an unspecified volume, also without collation).