PRIESTLEY, Joseph (1733-1804). Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever, London, 1787, 2 volumes, 8vo, contemporary half plum morocco gilt. Provenance: SIR JOHN C. HOBHOUSE (armorial bookplate). Mixed editions.

PRIESTLEY, Joseph (1733-1804).  Letters to a Philosophical Unbeliever. Part I. Containing An Examination of the Principal Objections to the Doctrines of Natural Religion, and especially those contained in the Writings of Mr. Hume. The Second Edition. [Part II. Containing A State of the Evidence of Revealed Religion, with Animadversions on the last Chapters of the first Volume of Mr. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire]. Birmingham: "Printed by Pearson and Rollason, for J. Johnson," 1787. 2 volumes, 8vo (210 x 130mm). "Corrigenda" slip laid down at the foot of the errata in vol. II ([?]lacks half titles, some light browning). Attractively bound in contemporary dark plum half morocco, spines gilt with red morocco lettering pieces (boards rubbed). This work, in part an attack on the philosophy of David Hume, was first published in 1780. Priestley was something of a polymath: apart from his writings as a dissenter, sceptic and grammarian, and his support for the American and French revolutions, he is perhaps chiefly remembered now as the discoverer of oxygen. Provenance: SIR JOHN C. HOBHOUSE (armorial bookplate). John Cam Hobhouse, 1st Baron Broughton (1786-1869) was "... the close and intimate friend of Byron ... In January 1815 he acted as 'best man' at Byron's wedding ... Hobhouse wrote the notes for the fourth canto of 'Childe Harold', which was afterwards dedicated to him by Byron" (see DNB). (2)