Cannibalism to Curiosity Presented by the Author
BOCK, Jean-Nicolas-Étienne.
Recherches philosophiques sur l’origine de la pitié et divers autres sujets de morale; par M. le B. de Bock. ‘À Londres. Se trouve à Paris, chez Belin ... La veuve Duchesne ... et à Metz, chez Devilly’, 1787.
12mo, pp. [2], 6–303, [1, blank], 2, [2]; bound without half-title; woodcut vignette to title; fore-edge tear to R2 (without loss), some staining to last leaf; a good copy in contemporary calf, flat spine decorated in gilt with gilt-lettered morocco label; small wormholes to upper joint, some wear to extremities and rubbing to boards; author’s presentation inscription to title ‘au Citoyen la Chose par l’auteur Strasbourg le 15 fevrier 1793 J. Bock’, occasional authorial ink corrections to text.
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Recherches philosophiques sur l’origine de la pitié et divers autres sujets de morale; par M. le B. de Bock.
First edition of an interesting work on human emotions by Jean-Nicolas-Étienne Bock (1747–1809), marketed by Marie Antoinette Duchesne, with a presentation inscription by the author.
The Recherches philosophiques comprise thirteen discours covering, inter alia, cruelty, cannibalism, pity, selfishness, hate, love, courage, curiosity, ingratitude, regret, hope, fear, and resignation.
Bock was a man of both action and letters, serving as a lieutenant in the French police force while also writing works of philosophy, biography, and history. Initially a supporter of the French Revolution, he soon withdrew to his country estate but in 1793 was deported as an émigré rentré; his goods were seized, and he spent the next ten years in exile in Germany. His friends and correspondents included Goethe, Wieland, and Buffon. The inscription here is dated from Strasbourg just a few months before his deportation.
Marie Antoinette Duchesne (née Cailleau, 1713–1793) was of good bookselling stock, her father André Cailleau and mother Antoinette Huguier both being members of the Parisian book trade. In 1747 she married Nicolas-Bonaventure Duchesne who ran his in-laws’ firm until his death in 1765. When Marie Antoinette succeeded him, the business was valued at 260,000 livres. ‘She printed several hundred works on all subjects (plays, novels, science, history, poetry, technology, theology etc.)’ (Arbour, Dictionnaire des femmes libraires en France, p. 203, trans.) including, for example, guides to scintillating conversation, erotic odes, and the complete works of Alexander Pope.
ESTC T181042.