BRADLEY, F.H. Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay. London and New York: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. and Macmillan & Co. 1893.
8vo. Publisher’s burgundy cloth, spine lettered and ruled in gilt, ruling continued boards in blind, black coated endpapers, edges untrimmed; pp. xxiv, 558; extremities slightly rubbed, rear hinge visibly repaired, but generally very good; occasional annotations and underlining; ownership signatures ‘Spenser Farquharson. June. 1894’ and ‘John Sparrow Apr 1949’ to verso of front free endpaper, and Sparrow's bookplate by Reynold Stone to front pastedown (see below).
First edition of Bradley’s most ambitious work and the central philosophical text of British idealism, with a distinguished provenance.
Francis Herbert Bradley (1846-1924) was arguably the most renowned and original figure among the British Idealists. In the preface to Appearance and Reality, he described the work as a ‘critical discussion of first principles’ intended to provoke inquiry and doubt. While his followers had expected a defence of religious truths, Bradley instead contended that although reality is spiritual, a full demonstration of this concept is beyond human comprehension due to the abstract nature of thought. ‘Instead of ideas, which could not properly contain reality, he recommended feeling, the immediacy of which could embrace the harmonious nature of reality’ (Britannica).
Appearance and Reality became a central target of criticism from the British analytic tradition, with figures such as Bertrand Russell, G. E. Moore, and later A. J. Ayer leading the charge. T.S. Eliot, whose unpresented doctoral thesis at Harvard was published in 1964 as Knowledge and Experience in the Philosophy of F.H. Bradley, quoted the philosopher in the notes to The Waste Land.
Provenance: This copy belonged to Spenser Farquharson, likely Arthur Spencer Loat Farquharson (1871-1942), the British classicist, translator, and Dean of University College, Oxford. By around 1949, the volumes had passed into the library of John Sparrow (1906-1992), the British academic, barrister, book collector, and Warden of All Souls College, Oxford.
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