Dictionnaire Historique Et Critique

Rotterdam: Michel Bohm, 1720., 1720. 4 Volumes. folio. pp. 4 p.l., xx, 942; 2 p.l., [945]-962, 963-968, 963-1830; 2 p.l., [1833]-2680; 2 p.l., [2681]-3132, [96]index. with half-titles. titles in red & black with engraved vignettes by W. De Gouwen after A. Vander Werf. dedication in red & black with large engraved headpiece by Bernard Picart. woodcut ornaments & initials. contemporary mottled calf, rebacked, corners renewed (light browning to several gatherings in last volume & occasionally to margins). Third Edition, revised and enlarged, edited by Prosper Marchand, the most attractive editon and the first to contain all of Bayle's additions. The most important and most influential sceptic of the late seventeenth century, Bayle provided the philosophers of the Enlightenment with a wealth of argument and ridicule with which to assail the intellectual 'Ancien Regime'. This, his major work, was composed with the intention of correcting the mistakes of Moreri's Grand Dictionnaire. "Bayle championed reason against belief, philosophy against religion, tolerance against superstition.For over half a century, until the publication of the Encyclopédie, Bayle's Dictionnaire dominated enlightened thinking in every part of Europe." (PMM) "Édition la plus belle et qui a été longtemps la plus recherché de ce dictionnaire." (Brunet) Brunet I 711. Picot, Rothschild, III 2502. cfPrinting and the Mind of Man 155b. cfRand I 115..