Books and Manuscripts

(Locke, John)
An Essay Concerning Humane Understandin. In Four Books
London: Printed by Eliz(abeth). Holt, for Thomas Basset, 1690. First edition (with Elizabeth Holt's name in imprint). Folio, 12 1/2 x 7 5/8 in. (317 x 194 mm). (xii), 362, (22) pp.; with pp. 287, 296, and 303 misnumbered 269, 294, and 230, respectively. Full contemporary brown speckled calf, stamped in blind, red morocco spine label, stamped in gilt, old paper label at head of spine, extremities and joints rubbed; red speckled edges; contemporary ownership signature on front paste-down and contemporary signature of Robert Kirktowne, London, 1698, on front free endpaper; lower gutter of pp. 19/20 restored, affecting small portion of text; scattered minor dampstaining in lower gutter; scattered contemporary marginalia. Pforzheimer 599; ESTC R22993; Printing and the Mind of Man 164; Grolier, 100 English, 36, and Wither to Prior, 527

A handsome first edition of John Locke's landmark philosophical treatise, a cornerstone of Western philosophical thought, and the first “to estimate critically the certainty and the adequacy of human knowledge." (PMM) This copy with Elizabeth Holt's name in the imprint, traditionally considered the first issue, although recent scholarship has called into question the priority between this and the traditional second issue with the Bassett and Mory imprint. It has been estimated that between only 500-900 copies of the first edition were printed, largely of this Holt issue.