L'UNIVERS ÉNIGMATIQUE. [and] LA CONVERSATION AVEC SOI-MÊME. [and] LA RELIGION DE L'HONNÊTE HOMME

Frankfurt, Liége, and Paris: Bassompierre, 1760, 1761, 1766. 185 x 98 mm. (6 1/2 x 3 3/4"). xviii, [2], 211 pp.; lvi, 401, [3] pp.; vii, [5], 201 pp. Three separately published works..
First two works in contemporary marbled sheep, spines gilt in compartments (first work with inelegant repair to spine); the third work in half sheep over marbled boards. Front pastedowns with ex-libris of Daniel Berditchevsky. ◆Short crack to tail of a couple of joints, boards with insignificant worming, extremities a little rubbed, but the bindings sound and not displeasing; excellent copies internally, clean and fresh with only minor imperfections.

Intended to promote piety in an increasingly secular world, these works were written by a man deemed the "Enemy of the Philosophers" for his defense of traditional Christian spirituality against Enlightenment rationalism. Marquis Louis-Antoine Caraccioli (1719-1803) was born in Paris to a noble Neapolitan family and travelled the Continent trying a variety of careers, from the church to the military, before returning to the city of his birth to pursue a literary life. He wrote biographical and historical works as well as defenses of the pope, but is best known for his excursions into conduct literature, his experiments with printing text in color, and his Christian apologia. Here, he seeks to refute the deism of the great "philosophes" of the Enlightenment in "The Enigmatic Universe" and to reconcile science with Christianity; offers Christianity as the best path to a happy life in "The Religion of the Honest Man"; and counsels self-reflection and soul-searching in "Conversations with Myself." These copies come from the library of Belgian theological writer, poet, and collector Daniel Berditchevsky..