Eric Chaim Kline, Bookseller

Seder Olam, sive Ordo Seculorum Historia Enarratio Doctrinae (A Doctrinal Narration of the World Order) [AND] Quaestiones Aliquot in Apocalypsin (Some Questions on the Apocalypse)

Helmont, Franciscus Mercurius van

[The Netherlands]: [N.p.], 1693. First edition. Hardcover. Two parts, duodecimo. A-H12 I4 (= 100 leaves, blank I4).196, [2, index], [2, blank]pp., 2 leaves of engraved plates between C6/C7 and D1/D2. Contemporary polished calf; spine with raised bands, gilt-tooled compartments, crimson morocco lettering piece; dentelles; edges stained red; marbled endpapers; green silk ribbon marker; bookplate. Light wear at extremities and top half of the upper joint. A very fresh copy.

First edition of this theosophical world chronicle, published during the author's last visit to England in 1693/94, when he was residing with John Locke whom he had earlier befriended in the Netherlands. Among the wide-ranging speculations is a notable discussion of the pre-existence and revolution of human souls. The work was translated into English the following year. The itinerant teacher, alchemist and writer Francisciscus Mercurius Van Helmont (1614-1699) “served as the link between the Kabbalah and the Cambridge Platonists led by Henry More and Ralph Cudworth, who made use of kabbalistic motifs for their own original speculative purposes” (Enc. Jud.). Very good +. Item #48863

References: A. P. Coudert, The Impact of the Kabbalah in the Seventeenth Century, 380; 253f., in the context of the transmigration of souls; Coudert questions the authorship in passing. Enc. Jud. 10:646. The Library of John Locke, 1416a.

Provenance: with the bookplate of Sylvain van de Weyer (1802-1874), a Belgian politician and diplomat from Louvain who served as the Belgian minister at the Court of St. James's, and who may have penned this somewhat critical note at the free endleaf: “quot fere paginae tot deliria et blasphemiae”.

Price: $1,950.00