The History of Scotland; [together with] -- The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V; [and] -- The History of America; [and] -- An Historical Disquisition Concerning the Knowledge which the Ancients had of India.

ROBERTSON, William.

Edité par London: various publishers, 1806-08-09-09

A propos de cet article

A handsome set of the historian's influential oeuvre covering both the Old and New Worlds; here in later editions contemporarily bound in attractive marbled calf. Robertson's "four published historical works brought him considerable fame and wealth, and they helped establish historical writing as one of the foremost literary genres of Enlightenment Scotland" (ODNB). Of the triumvirate of great 18th-century British historians - Robertson, Gibbon, Hume - only Robertson (1721-1793) published more than a single history. Historiographers and anthropologists alike have recognized in Robertson's sustained achievement an early emphasis on "the importance of general ideas in history" and he "possessed the literary skill to write with a sense of the movement of events and social tides" (Hoebel, p. 648). Robertson's contemporaries regarded him as the leading historian of Europe following his histories of Scotland (1759) and Emperor Charles V (1769). The History of America (1777), meanwhile, guided and inspired the historians, poets, novelists, and nationalists of the New World into the early 19th century. Robertson turned to India (1791) for his final publication and investigated the country's cultural and commercial connections with the West up to the 16th century. Chronicling the events of such disparate times and places, Robertson was "the only major British historian of the period to attempt something like a global history" (ODNB), which he provided in the succession of celebrated works contained in this set. E. Adamson Hoebel, "William Robertson: An 18th Century Anthropologist-Historian", American Anthropologist, new series, vol. 62, no. 4, Aug. 1960, pp. 648-55. 4 works in 12 vols, octavo (209 x 126 mm). With 6 engraved plates (1 folding) and 6 folding maps. Contemporary marbled calf, red and dark green spine labels, compartments ruled and numbered direct in gilt, twin gilt fillet bordering covers, gilt roll on board edges, milled blind roll on turn-ins, marbled endpapers and edges. Bindings faintly mottled, occasional rubbing and small corner wear, sporadic light creasing, foxing, and marks internally, most folding maps sometime mounted onto later stubs. A pleasingly bound set.

N° de réf. du vendeur 166906

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The History of Scotland; [together with] -- The History of the Reign of the Emperor Charles V; [and] -- The History of America; [and] -- An Historical Disquisition Concerning the Knowledge which the Ancients had of India.
• Éditeur: London: various publishers, 1806-08-09-09