Two Letters Addressed to a Member of the Present Parliament on the Proposals for Peace with the Regicide Directory of France

Edmund Burke

Published by Woodbank Press, Warsaw, 2018

About this Item

Two Letters Addressed to a Member of the Present Parliament on the Proposals for Peace with the Regicide Directory of France

Edmund Burke

Limited Edition by Woodbank Press

Edmund Burke?s Letters on a Regicide Peace belong to the final phase of his political writing and to the great European debate provoked by the French Revolution. Written in the 1790s, the letters were directed against William Pitt?s attempts to negotiate peace with the French Directory, which Burke regarded not as an ordinary government but as the political expression of revolutionary ideology.

The first two letters were published in 1796. Burke argued that peace with revolutionary France could not be treated as a conventional diplomatic settlement, because the conflict was, in his view, not merely territorial but political and civilizational. The French Revolution had already transformed the political order of Europe, and Burke feared that accommodation with the Directory would strengthen rather than contain its influence.

The work belongs alongside Reflections on the Revolution in France among Burke?s most important writings on the consequences of the Revolution. It also represents one of the clearest expressions of his later political thought: distrust of abstract political schemes, defence of inherited institutions, and insistence that political order depends upon continuity, restraint and historical experience.

Edmund Burke (1729?1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, political thinker and writer, and one of the most influential parliamentary figures of the eighteenth century. His writings on constitutional government, political representation, empire and revolution had a lasting influence on British and European political thought. The Letters on a Regicide Peace, written shortly before his death, form a striking conclusion to that career.

The Woodbank Press Edition

This edition is limited to 25 copies. The text has been set in 14-point Monotype Bulmer, a typeface derived from the late-eighteenth-century types associated with William Bulmer and the Shakespeare Press.

The sheets are printed on Century Laid cotton paper. Each copy is bound by hand in half leather with marbled boards, with gilt titles and decoration to the spine and marbled edges. The volume is housed in a slipcase.

The typography, laid paper, traditional half-leather binding and restrained decoration reflect the appearance of late-eighteenth-century English books and place the edition firmly within the private press tradition.

Bibliographical Details

Author: Edmund Burke
Title: Two Letters Addressed to a Member of the Present Parliament on the Proposals for Peace with the Regicide Directory of France
Publisher: Woodbank Press
Format: Octavo
Pagination: 196 pp.
Edition: Limited to 25 copies
Type: 14-point Monotype Bulmer
Paper: Century Laid cotton paper
Binding: Hand-bound half leather with marbled boards
Spine: Titles and decoration gilt
Edges: Marbled
Issued with: Slipcase

Condition

Brand new copy in a fine binding.

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Seller Inventory # 18

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Two Letters Addressed to a Member of the Present Parliament on the Proposals for Peace with the Regicide Directory of France
• Publisher: Woodbank Press, Warsaw
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New
• Seller catalogs:
  • Edmund Burke
  • Philosophy & Political Thought