1798 ILLUMINATI Masons Proofs of a Conspiracy
Robison, John, and George Forman. Proofs of a Conspiracy against All the Religions and Governments of Europe: Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies.
New-York: Printed and sold by George Forman, no. 64, Water-Street, between Coenties and the Old-Slip, 1798. Full leather with red Mor. label, a good example of a period treecalf or acid treated binding, even if a little bruised with rubbed points and edges. The fourth edition, to which is added, a postscript. 399, [1] p. ; (8vo)
Pastedown has an early Boston bookseller's label, R.P. & C. Williams, (""Publish, Import and Keep For Sale a Large Assortment of Books"") with penned notes suggesting an early lending scheme, No. 192 and Kept eight weeks; contemporary owner's name signed on facing flyleaf, Abigail S. Turner. Some toning and foxing but overall a good copy. Scarce.
A foundational work for the study of what Richard Hofstadter identified as the "paranoid style" in American politics--and one of the earliest American books relating to Masons and secret societies.
Americans first learned of Illuminism in 1797, from a volume published in Edinburgh (later reprinted in New York) under the title, Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies. Its author was a well-known Scottish scientist, John Robison, who had himself been a somewhat casual adherent of Masonry in Britain, but whose imagination had been inflamed by what he considered to be the far less innocent Masonic movement on the Continent. Robison seems to have made his work as factual as he could, but when he came to estimating the moral character and the political influence of Illuminism, he made the characteristic paranoid leap into fantasy. The association, he thought, was formed “for the express purpose of rooting out all religious establishments, and overturning all the existing governments of Europe.” It had become “one great and wicked project fermenting and working all over Europe.” And to it he attributed a central role in bringing about the French Revolution. He saw it as a libertine, anti-Christian movement, given to the corruption of women, the cultivation of sensual pleasures, and the violation of property rights. Its members had plans for making a tea that caused abortion—a secret substance that “blinds or kills when spurted in the face,” and a device that sounds like a stench bomb—a “method for filling a bedchamber with pestilential vapours.”
These notions were quick to make themselves felt in America. (Harper's Magazine, Nov. 1964 issue.)
View it on
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
Robison, John, and George Forman. Proofs of a Conspiracy against All the Religions and Governments of Europe: Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies.
New-York: Printed and sold by George Forman, no. 64, Water-Street, between Coenties and the Old-Slip, 1798. Full leather with red Mor. label, a good example of a period treecalf or acid treated binding, even if a little bruised with rubbed points and edges. The fourth edition, to which is added, a postscript. 399, [1] p. ; (8vo)
Pastedown has an early Boston bookseller's label, R.P. & C. Williams, (""Publish, Import and Keep For Sale a Large Assortment of Books"") with penned notes suggesting an early lending scheme, No. 192 and Kept eight weeks; contemporary owner's name signed on facing flyleaf, Abigail S. Turner. Some toning and foxing but overall a good copy. Scarce.
A foundational work for the study of what Richard Hofstadter identified as the "paranoid style" in American politics--and one of the earliest American books relating to Masons and secret societies.
Americans first learned of Illuminism in 1797, from a volume published in Edinburgh (later reprinted in New York) under the title, Proofs of a Conspiracy Against All the Religions and Governments of Europe, Carried on in the Secret Meetings of Free Masons, Illuminati, and Reading Societies. Its author was a well-known Scottish scientist, John Robison, who had himself been a somewhat casual adherent of Masonry in Britain, but whose imagination had been inflamed by what he considered to be the far less innocent Masonic movement on the Continent. Robison seems to have made his work as factual as he could, but when he came to estimating the moral character and the political influence of Illuminism, he made the characteristic paranoid leap into fantasy. The association, he thought, was formed “for the express purpose of rooting out all religious establishments, and overturning all the existing governments of Europe.” It had become “one great and wicked project fermenting and working all over Europe.” And to it he attributed a central role in bringing about the French Revolution. He saw it as a libertine, anti-Christian movement, given to the corruption of women, the cultivation of sensual pleasures, and the violation of property rights. Its members had plans for making a tea that caused abortion—a secret substance that “blinds or kills when spurted in the face,” and a device that sounds like a stench bomb—a “method for filling a bedchamber with pestilential vapours.”
These notions were quick to make themselves felt in America. (Harper's Magazine, Nov. 1964 issue.)
Estimate
Time, Location
Auction House
