Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times : In Three Volumes (Volume I)

This is the first new edition of Shaftesbury's Characteristicks as a coherent collection for almost a century. A series of Treatises of interconnected themes in moral philosophy, aesthetics, literature, and politics, it was immensely influential on eighteenth-century British taste and manners, literature and thought. A substantial Introduction places Shaftesbury's works and ideas in the context of his times. The text is that of the first edition of 1711, as marked up with changes by Shaftesbury himself in preparation for the posthumous second edition of 1714; a scholarly apparatus and commentary are provided, and the striking emblematic engravings he commissioned especially for the second edition are incorporated.