Old Books

In my spare time, I like to hunt down old editions of philosophical works.  

These are copies of Aristotle's Physics and Metaphysics, published by Jacob Stoer in Geneva, in 1608.  They were originally bound in velum (as can be seen on the volume in the rear), but the Metaphysics was re-bound in leather sometime later.   Originally these volumes were part a series of Aristotle's works.  They have interesting provenance.  As can be seen on the title page of the Metaphysics, they once belong to Julien-Joseph Virey.  Virey was a scientist and an early (first half of 19th c.) proponent of evolution.  Since they are a matched pair and I bought them together, I assume that he once owned both volumes.

This is a 1734 edition of Leibniz' Theodicy.  Its provenance traces back to the library of a now-defunct monastery.  

Here we have a 1614 edition of both Seneca the Elder (writing about rhetoric) and Seneca the Younger (the philosopher).

This is a 1596 edition of Cicero's works in its original vellum binding.  An even earlier document that was used as binder's waste is visible where the vellum is peeling back at the foot of one of the volumes.  It was published by the heirs of Eustache Vignon (who had died eight years earlier), probably in Geneva.  It contains many previous owner's names, unfortunately most of them are crossed out or illegible.  One is dated 1629.  More recently it belonged to a seminary.

This is a 1721 abridgment of Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding.  No provenance on this one.  The covers obviously have some wear, but they are made of nicely tooled leather.  

Here we have a 1799 edition of Kant's Anthropology. The first edition was published a year earlier, but rather than being a copy of the second edition this is an unauthorized reprint of the first edition.  Pirated editions of books (even academic books!) seems to have been quite a problem at the time.  Kant even wrote an essay about it.  The binding is from the 20th century.

A copy of his Essay, from a collection of Condillac's works published in 1792.