A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

In his Enquiry―which has been described as "certainly one of the most important aesthetic documents that eighteenth -century England produced"―the young Burke provided a systematic analysis of the 'sublime' and the 'beautiful,' together with a distinctive terminology which served to express certain facets of the changing sensibility of his time.

The introduction traces the main sources of Burke’s ideas and establishes the nature of his originality. The largest section of the editor’s introduction, however, examines the influence of the Enquiry. Major writers like Johnson, Wordsworth and Thomas Hardy, painters such as Fuseli and Mortimer, and critics such as Diderot, Lessing and Kant, as well as many other minor figures, recognized Burke’s new insights, and in varying degrees assimilated them.

The second edition, revised by Burke himself, provides the copy-text, including changes between the first and second editions.

Edmund Burke (1729–1797) was elected as an MP in 1781. He championed the unpopular cause of Catholic emancipation and a great part of his career became dedicated to the problem of India. The French Revolution prompted one of his best-known works Reflections on the Revolution in France

James T. Boulton (1924-2013) was professor of English Studies and head of the Department of English at Birmingham University. He was either editor or author for more than 60 books, as well as 50 articles and occasional papers. Much of his research – including his last book which was published at the end of 2012 when he was 88 – focused on the literature and political writings of the 18th century, notably the work of Daniel Defoe, Samuel Johnson, James Boswell, and Edmund Burke.