The Works of Edmund Burke

What it is

This is a collected edition of the Works of Edmund Burke, published in 1889 and held in a library record. The record describes it as a collection of Burke's writings on British politics between 1760 and 1820. The text available to readers is a scanned volume from the series Bohn's Standard Library, whose opening pages show the first volume's contents, including A Vindication of Natural Society and An Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful.

Why it matters

This edition gathers Burke's own words, so it lets readers judge his ideas directly rather than through later summaries. Its range of writings covers the period when Britain faced political conflicts, including the years of the coalition and the French Revolution. Libraries preserved editions like this so that later students could study the arguments of Burke and his contemporaries.

Look closer

• Why might a collected edition include early essays alongside later political writings?
• Who chose which works to include, and what might have been left out?
• How does reading Burke's words in print differ from reading a summary written by someone else?