£500
2 vols., 8vo, pp. iv, [16]-486; vii, [i], 17-587, [1]. Contemporary tree calf, boards bordered with a gilt roll, red and black morocco labels, spines divided by gilt rolls and rules and tooled elaborately in gilt, marbled andpapers. A little rubbed, some insect damage to rear board of vol. 2, red labels sometime renewed, joints cracked but cords firm. Armorial bookplates of the Bell family of Woolsington to pastedowns.
The third posthumous printing of Hume's collection of essays, and the first to include the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. The Essays and Treatises had been first collected in 1753 and went through regular revisions and additions until Hume's death in 1776; the first posthumous edition in 1777 added an essay on government. It was not until 1779, however, that Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, which he had written and revised over two and half decades, finally saw print, and they were then omitted from the 1784 reprint of the Essays and Treatises, only making their appearance in a collected edition for the first time here.
