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

Third and definitive version published during Raynal's lifetime of the Histoire philosophique et politique des établissemens et du commerce des Européens dans les deux Indes, issued in Geneva by Jean-Léonard Pellet. The text appeared in 1780 simultaneously in four quarto volumes and ten octavo volumes; the present copy belongs to the octavo issue reissued with cancel titles dated 1781. Substantially enlarged from the versions of 1770 and 1774, this is the fullest form of the text published during Raynal's lifetime.

10 volumes, octavo. The first volume opens with a portrait of Raynal designed by Charles-Nicolas Cochin and engraved by Nicolas de Launay, bearing beneath it the dedication: « Au défenseur de l'Humanité, de la Vérité, de la Liberté. Eliza Draper » [To the defender of Humanity, Truth and Liberty. Eliza Draper]. The remaining nine volumes each contain a frontispiece designed by Moreau le Jeune and engraved by, among others, de Launay, Delignon and Simonet. Complete with all half-titles and the ten errata leaves at the end of the respective volumes. Rigobert Bonne's separately published atlas, comprising 50 maps and 23 statistical tables, is not present.

Contemporary full green morocco, smooth gilt-decorated spines, red morocco lettering- and numbering-pieces, covers framed with a gilt fillet. Spines uniformly faded, some rubbing. A very attractive set, particularly handsome in contemporary green morocco.

From the library of Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, with their bookplate designed by Gavarni and etched by Jules de Goncourt, and Edmond's autograph signature in red ink above it. The small etching depicts a hand holding an etching needle, two fingers resting upon the initials E. J.; the British Museum preserves an impression and records Jules de Goncourt as the printmaker after Gavarni.

First published anonymously in 1770, the Histoire des deux Indes was repeatedly revised, enlarged and reorganised over the following decade. Behind Raynal's name lay a collective undertaking drawing upon numerous informants and contributors. Diderot was involved from the earlier versions, but his contribution became considerably more extensive in the 1780 text, which the Bibliothèque nationale de France specifically describes as containing numerous contributions by him. This final rewriting brought to completion a work that had grown steadily more radical through successive revisions.

Presented as a vast history of European settlements and trade in Asia, Africa and the Americas, the work examines the political and human consequences of European expansion. Conquest, commercial monopoly, violence against colonised peoples and, above all, slavery are subjected to attacks that include some of the strongest to emerge from the French Enlightenment. Modern scholarship has in particular identified the contributions of Diderot and Jean Pechméja to its antislavery passages. Such denunciations do not remove all the tensions of a collective work still engaged with contemporary arguments over commerce and colonial power; they nevertheless give the book a political force extending far beyond its original historical purpose.

The response of the authorities indicates how far that force was felt. An Order in Council of 19 December 1779 prohibited the introduction of the work into France; on 25 May 1781 the Parlement of Paris went further, ordering the edition to be torn up and burned by the public executioner. A warrant was issued for Raynal's arrest and he was forced to remain outside France. The third version, now openly published under his name and prefaced by his portrait as the « défenseur de l'Humanité, de la Vérité, de la Liberté » [defender of Humanity, Truth and Liberty], thus publicly identified the man whom the earlier editions had left anonymous.

The Goncourt provenance gives this particular copy an additional coherence. Collectors as much as writers, Edmond and Jules made eighteenth-century French art one of their principal fields of study; their historical writing frequently began with an autograph document, a print examined at first hand or a drawing discovered in a collection. In L'Art du XVIIIe siècle they devoted their 1868 instalment to "Les Vignettistes : Gravelot, Cochin", followed in 1870, the year of Jules's death, by "Les Vignettistes : Eisen, Moreau".

Their bookplate therefore sits in a volume illustrated by two artists whom they themselves helped restore to prominence: Cochin opens the first volume with Raynal's portrait, while Moreau accompanies the remaining nine. In this copy, the Goncourt provenance does more than add a celebrated name to its history; it leads directly back to one of the tastes upon which their library was built.