VOLNEY, Constantin Francois [Trans: JEFFERSON, Thomas]

Volney's Ruins; or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires. Translated under the immediate inspection of the Author from the Sixth Paris Edition.

Boston: Charles Gaylord, 1835. Early US Edition. Twelvemo. 17cm. Publisher's original linen spine, lacking paper title label, over decorated publisher's paper covered boards. 216pp. Strong and solid, scuffed to the corners with the paper worn allowing the board to show through, rubbed and a little battered in places, with some light cosmetic fraying to the spine ends and a general unform wear that is oddly not unappealinig; internally foxed in a pale, similarly uniform fashion, with some truly eccentric oak gall ink inscriptions to the preliminary blanks stating that the book was part of the library of the Transylvania Whig Society of Kentucky, and presented by a visiting Englishman, the inscriptions seem to serve as a kind of lending record, denoting that the book was especially approved of by Kathleen O'Pinkerly, who seems to have borrowed it twice; the page block is worn and a little stained, but solid and eminently handleable, and the rear flyleaf blank is covered with small neat pencil annotations, with a corner of the blank torn away. Cosmetically unappealing perhaps, but aesthetically rather charming and undeniably a survivor. A very good copy by dint of completeness, eccentricity, and stubbornness.

An early US reprint (the US first was issued in New York in 1828 by Dixon and Sickles, and it is likely there is a Gaylord edition from 1833), with all US imprints being pretty thin on the ground, especially with illustrated publisher's boards. This is in addition an uncredited Jefferson-Barlow translation, translated with the approval and co-operation of the author by none other than Thomas Jefferson, who managed the first 20 chapters or so before distracting himself with political fripperies, whereupon it was subsequently completed by Joel Barlow. Of the various translations the Jefferson-Barlow is considered superior by dint of Volney's close relationship with Jefferson, their common views and sympathies, and frankly the fact that it renders the whole piece rather more poetically than might be found elsewhere.

Controversial and madly popular, it's far more a work of radical philosophy than anything else; like Jefferson, Volney was a committed Deist, and a firm believer in the separation of church and state for reasons clearly expressed by him (through Jefferson) in this work. Even more radically for the time he was a propogator of the "Christ Myth", which suggested that there was little or no evidence for the actual existence of Christ as a historical personage, and that He was far more likely to be an inspiring assemblage. As might be expected, such views were polarizing, engendering either inspired revolutionary support, or cries of heresy and treason depending upon the reader. The upshot of this and a number of other controversies was that Volney (in common with the Founding Fathers, not being a man known for keeping his mouth shut) was ejected from the United States on more or less invented charges of espionage, and his philosophical musings on the ashes of Empires and the sad destiny of mankind somewhat discredited. This had little effect upon the historical importance of Volney's "Ruins" however, and it was, for example, widely embraced by the Romantics and their followers, with Shelley having a virtual addiction to its evocative embracing of decay, and his wife Mary, for reasons of her own, making it the text from which Frankentein's monster learned what he could about the nature of mankind and developed a rather stereotypically male interest in the Roman Empire. An unusual edition of an influential and incendiary work.

Price: $350.00

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