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[DODSLEY, Robert].

The Oeconomy of Human Life.

The Oeconomy of Human Life.

In two parts. Translated from an Indian manuscript, written by an ancient Bramin. To which is prefixed, an account of the manner in which the aid manuscript was discovered. In a letter from an English gentleman, residing in China, to the Earl of ****.

Stock Code 124486

Printed in the year 1762.

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An lifetime edition of this curious work by the English writer Robert Dodsley (1703-1764), which passes itself off as an English translation of an ancient Indian text found by a Chinese scholar in Lhasa.

The work itself is a collection of moral aphorisms in the Enlightenment tradition, inspired by the likes of Montesquieu's Lettres Persanes, and European interest in the orient. A particularly pleasing example in contemporary sprinkled calf gilt.

All early printings of this work are scarce, with ESTC recording just 4 copies of the present edition in institutional collections worldwide: 1 in the British Isles (BL), and 3 in North America (Georgetown University, University of Kansas, and University of Victoria)

12mo (13.5 x 7.5 cm); divisional title-page, MS note in pen to front free endpaper recto, B11-12 with small stain, occasional light spotting elsewhere; contemporary sprinkled calf, covers with double gilt filet border, gilt spines in 5 compartments with crosshatch design, contrasting red morocco lettering-piece to 2nd compartments small split to lower joint but holding, very good;xviii, [1], 20-185, [7]pp.

ESTC N69227.

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