12mo. In three volumes. [6], 257, [1]; [2], 283, [1]; [3], 6-298pp, [2]. Without half-titles. Contemporary red half-morocco, marbled boards, tooled and lettered in gilt. Marbled endpapers, inked ownership inscriptions of Mary Virginia to head of all titles, foxed.

Jacques-Benigne Bossuet (1627-1704), French theologian and court preacher to Louis XIV. First printed in 1681, Discours sur l'histoire universelle is regarded by the Roman Catholic Church to be an actualisation and continuation of St. Augustine of Hippo's De Civitate Dei, regarding as it does metaphysical universal history to be the result of the spiritual conflict between God and the forces of evil. Composed for the instruction of his student the Grand Dauphin, the work charts the events which resulted in the formation of the Christian Church, emphasising the longevity of religion over the empires of man. Bossuet concludes that it is the will of the Lord, acted out through divine providence, that pagan civilisations should fall whilst Christian peoples endure.