[La Peyrère (Isaac)] Praeadamitae..., first edition, engraved map of Holy Land, [Amsterdam, Louis & Daniel Elzevier], 1655.

[La Peyrère (Isaac)] Praeadamitae...quibus inducuntur prii homines ante Adamum conditi, 2 parts in 1, first edition, woodcut device on title, head- & tail-pieces and initials, engraved map of Holy Land (trimmed close to border), title lightly soiled, a few ink markings and underlinings, cropped with some head-lines and side-notes shaved, old red ink stamp of Ickwell-Bury library to front free endpaper, nineteenth century half sheep over marbled boards, rubbed, rebacked in calf preserving old red morocco label, [Willems 1188], small 4to, [Amsterdam, Louis & Daniel Elzevier], 1655.

⁂ An important and controversial book, one of the first in Europe to question the Biblical account of the creation of mankind and to suggest that there must have been other men before Adam. La Peyrère (1596-1676) pointed out inconsistencies in Genesis concerning both the creation of man and of the Jews, and several intellectuals of the day such as Ole Worm, André Rivet and Menasseh ben Israel who read the manuscript probably sympathised with his thesis, but the work was received with scorn. He was forced to apologise and publish a recantation although continuing to believe his theory until his death in an Oratorian seminary outside Paris. Anthony Grafton gives a clear idea of the significance of this book in his New Worlds, Ancient Texts (Harvard 1992). This the true first edition; a 12mo edition was published later the same year. The work was influential on Spinoza and the theologian Richard Simon.