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Atelier Zweig is proud to represent Heribert Tenschert in the U.S.

8vo (approx. 17 cm). Contemporary boards, later institutional cloth covering, with printed spine reference.

Scarce true first edition, first issue of Jacobi’s most influential philosophical work, presenting his correspondence with Moses Mendelssohn and precipitating the so-called Pantheismusstreit—one of the defining intellectual controversies of the late Enlightenment.

Provenance: From the collection of Julius Rosenthal (1827–1905), prominent German-born lawyer and philanthropist in Chicago. Front pastedown with University of Chicago Library gift bookplate (“Gift of Julius Rosenthal,” stamped withdrawn); title page stamped and punched by the University Library, with additional withdrawal markings; rear pastedown with Swift Hall Library wallet. Accession records (no. 208247, January 11, 1905) confirm the donation as part of a group of volumes for the German departmental library. Later transferred to the Divinity School and subsequently withdrawn, likely as a duplicate. Acquired by the present owner from the collection of Tim Lutz.

Condition: Very Good or better. Boards lightly worn at extremities; corners gently bumped. Text internally bright, clean, and remarkably well preserved, with strong legibility throughout. Institutional markings as described below. A crisp and appealing example of this scarce first issue.

History & Legacy

Triggered by Jacobi’s report of Lessing’s alleged Spinozism, the work forces a confrontation with questions of pantheism, determinism, atheism, and the limits of rational demonstration. In opposing systematic rationalism, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi advances a philosophy grounded in immediate belief and lived certainty, marking a decisive shift toward the concerns of German Idealism and early Romanticism. The debate engaged central figures of the period, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herder, and Kant, and laid the groundwork for the later “Spinoza Renaissance.”

Of particular bibliographical importance, this first issue contains the first printings of two celebrated poems by Goethe: Edel sei der Mensch and Prometheus. The latter appears on an unnumbered double leaf inserted between pp. 48/49, as issued. The original footnote on p. 11 (“S. das Gedicht am Ende des Briefes”) explicitly refers to this insertion and serves as a key point of identification for the true first issue.

Collation: [viii], 48, [4], 49–215, [1, errata] pp., with the unpaginated double leaf containing Prometheus bound between pp. 48/49, as issued.

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BRESLAU: GOTTLIEB LÖWE · 1785

Über die Lehre des Spinoza

Name: Über die Lehre des Spinoza
Brand: Atelier Zweig Rare Books
Price: 1850.00 USD
Availability: OutOfStock

Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich.

$1,850.00VAT included, plus shipping

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8vo (approx. 17 cm). Contemporary boards, later institutional cloth covering, with printed spine reference.

Scarce true first edition, first issue of Jacobi’s most influential philosophical work, presenting his correspondence with Moses Mendelssohn and precipitating the so-called Pantheismusstreit—one of the defining intellectual controversies of the late Enlightenment.

Provenance: From the collection of Julius Rosenthal (1827–1905), prominent German-born lawyer and philanthropist in Chicago. Front pastedown with University of Chicago Library gift bookplate (“Gift of Julius Rosenthal,” stamped withdrawn); title page stamped and punched by the University Library, with additional withdrawal markings; rear pastedown with Swift Hall Library wallet. Accession records (no. 208247, January 11, 1905) confirm the donation as part of a group of volumes for the German departmental library. Later transferred to the Divinity School and subsequently withdrawn, likely as a duplicate. Acquired by the present owner from the collection of Tim Lutz.

Condition: Very Good or better. Boards lightly worn at extremities; corners gently bumped. Text internally bright, clean, and remarkably well preserved, with strong legibility throughout. Institutional markings as described below. A crisp and appealing example of this scarce first issue.

History & Legacy

Triggered by Jacobi’s report of Lessing’s alleged Spinozism, the work forces a confrontation with questions of pantheism, determinism, atheism, and the limits of rational demonstration. In opposing systematic rationalism, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi advances a philosophy grounded in immediate belief and lived certainty, marking a decisive shift toward the concerns of German Idealism and early Romanticism. The debate engaged central figures of the period, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Herder, and Kant, and laid the groundwork for the later “Spinoza Renaissance.”

Of particular bibliographical importance, this first issue contains the first printings of two celebrated poems by Goethe: Edel sei der Mensch and Prometheus. The latter appears on an unnumbered double leaf inserted between pp. 48/49, as issued. The original footnote on p. 11 (“S. das Gedicht am Ende des Briefes”) explicitly refers to this insertion and serves as a key point of identification for the true first issue.

Collation: [viii], 48, [4], 49–215, [1, errata] pp., with the unpaginated double leaf containing Prometheus bound between pp. 48/49, as issued.

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