Gifts Ideas Philosophy | Pillars of Wisdom

A unique combination of French translations of the first two philosophical works on the Sublime, marking the beginning of the most important reflection on aesthetics in Western history.
Extremely rare first edition of the first French translation of a philosophical work by Immanuel Kant, and the second ever translation of a Kantian text. The others were only translated during the 19th century. Illustrated with a portrait of the author by Benezy. The first edition in German was published in 1764 in Königsberg under the title "Beobachtungen über das Gefühl des Schönen und Erhabenen".
Contemporary half brown roan binding with vellum corners, smooth...

First edition, one of 106 numbered copies on Hollande paper, constituting the deluxe issue.
Fine copy of this important work in Albert Camus's literary career. Although published eleven years after his death, it was in fact his first novel, written and revised between 1936 and 1938 before being abandoned in favour of The Stranger, for which it is regarded as the precursor.

Rare and genuine posthumous first edition of the first six books of the Confessions, the remaining volumes not appearing until 1789. Several other editions were issued shortly thereafter, but the evidence provided by the commentary published in the June 1782 issue of the Journal Helvétique clearly establishes that this separately printed edition, known as the "large type" issue, is indeed the very first (F. Michaux, "L'Édition originale de la première partie des 'Confessions' de J.-J. Rousseau" in Revue d'Histoire littéraire de la France, 35th Year, No. 2 (1928), pp. 250-253).
Contemporary half calf bindings, flat spines tooled with gilt fillets and decorated...

Autograph manuscript of 12 pages on squared sheets, written in blue ink, with numerous passages underlined.
A previously unpublished set of reflections by Jean-Paul Sartre on social structure and bourgeois ideology, probably written in 1952 as part of a projected screenplay on the revolutionary period. This series of interior dialogues on the nature of individual and collective power constitutes an early draft of the ideas later developed in his 1960 masterpiece, Critique of Dialectical Reason. Through the example of the French Revolution and the Terror, Sartre questions the role of the citizen and of property, drawing on the writings of Kant, Marx...

First edition displaying all the distinctive features of its publication: it presents no capital letters except at the beginning of paragraphs and it is the very first work to have been printed with Voltaire's spelling. Our copy is complete with its errata leaf, which is often missing.
Later bindings (19th century) in full red morocco, Jansenist spines with five raised bands, dates and places gilt at foot, boards struck at center with large gilt typographical fleurons, double gilt fillets on leading edges and headcaps, pastedowns lined with blue morocco presenting a wide gilt decorative border, monogrammed bookplates mounted on the pastedowns of each volume, following endpapers of...

First edition, one of 40 numbered copies on vélin pur fil paper, the tirage de tête (deluxe copies).

Full morocco, covers and spine preserved, slipcase, elegant binding signed by Semet & Plumelle.

Provenances: mostly from Robert Desprechins' library with his ex-libris drawn by Jean Cocteau, and by Louis de Sadeleer with his engraved ex-libris.

A very nice copy beautifully bound morocco signed by Semet & Plumelle.

A new, corrected and enlarged collected edition of the Œuvres philosophiques of Julien Offray de La Mettrie, published in 1764 and more comprehensive than the first collected edition issued in Berlin in 1751. It includes in particular the Anti-Sénèque, ou Discours sur le bonheur and L'Art de jouir, both absent from that earlier collection.

The two volumes are joined, in a strictly uniform contemporary binding, by L'Homme plus que machine, a work long attributed to La Mettrie but now assigned to Élie Luzac. The three volumes thus form a contemporary collected set.

Two works bound in one volume: first edition of Principia philosophiae fol­lowed by the first Latin edition of Spec­imina philosophiae. Complete with blank leaves b4 and 2Q4.

Printer's mark representing Minerva and her owl, as well as the motto “Ne extra oleas” on the title page. Numerous in-text engrav­ings.

Bound in full calf, spine with five raised bands framed in gilt, elaborately decorat­ed in gilt, gilt arms of the Society of Writers to the Signet at center of boards framed in blind, marbled endpapers, speckled edges. Library shelfmark glued to the pastedown endpaper, additional penned shelfmarks on the pastedown, and a manuscript...

Autograph manuscript by the author, two and a half pages in-8, published in the issue of May 11, 1944 of the Journal des Débats. Complete manuscript in very dense handwriting, with numerous erasures, corrections, and additions. Literary column published on the occasion of the release of Gaston Bachelard's L'air et les songes. Accompanied by the complete typescript.

« L'homme est d'abord rêverie, puissance d'imaginer avant d'être sensibilité et raison », Blanchot’s analysis of this new essay by Bachelard provides an opportunity to confront the philosopher with the uncertainties of his theory, which tends to fragment in the plurality of its forms...

First edition for both texts.
Contemporary quarter brown polished calf binding, spine with five raised bands ruled and decorated in gilt and blind, marbled paper boards, stylized acanthus leaves endpapers and pastedowns, marbled edges.
Exceptional reunion of these two great Nietzschean texts, the very last ones written before the philosopher succumbed to madness.