BURKE, Edmund. De Officio Hominis & Civis juxta Legem Naturalem Libri Duo. Selectis Variorum Notis (From the library of Edmund Burke, containing one of the most widely read treatises on natural law)

Maximenq; propriis illustravit, celeberrimi Buddei Historiam Juris Naturalis Notis adauctam praemisit, Indicemq; rerum subjunxit Tho. Johnson, A.M. Coll. Magd. Cant. Soc. By Samuel Puffendorf. Editio Secunda longe auctior & emindatior. Londoni: Impensis Gul. Thurlbourn, Bibliopolae Cantab, 1737. Octavo. pp. [xxiv], 312. Contemporary full vellum, titled in manuscript. From the library of Edmund Burke, with Burke’s bookplate ‘Edmund Burke / Beaconsfield’ to titlepage. Some scoring and marginal annotations, to seventeen pages. In fine condition.

Puffendorf’s De Officio (first published 1673) was one of the most widely read treatises on natural law, serving as a standard text across European universities for much of the eighteenth century. It distilled the principles of natural law into a concise, didactic form, influencing political philosophy, jurisprudence, and theories of civil society. Its impact extended to Locke, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and the American Founders.
The provenance of this copy is of the utmost importance. Burke, regarded as the intellectual founder of modern conservatism, was deeply engaged with questions of natural law, justice, and the relationship between individual conscience and the state, precisely the themes addressed by Puffendorf. The presence of annotations and scoring in this volume offers the potential for direct insight into Burke’s reading and intellectual development. A rare opportunity to acquire not only an influential text of Enlightenment political thought but also a volume directly linked to one of the greatest political minds of the eighteenth century.
Its significance for Edmund Burke is profound. Burke’s political philosophy, from A Vindication of Natural Society (1756) through Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), repeatedly engaged with questions at the heart of Puffendorf’s treatise: the tension between natural rights and the duties of citizens; the legitimacy of political authority; and the moral foundations of civil society. Burke famously argued for a balance between individual liberty and the obligations owed to community, tradition, and inherited institutions. Puffendorf’s emphasis on natural law as a framework binding both rulers and subjects would have been directly relevant to Burke’s intellectual formation. The book provides a rare and direct witness to his private engagement with a foundational work of European political thought. This volume, is not merely a relic of Burke’s library but potentially a document of scholarly discovery, bridging one of the seventeenth century’s most important jurists with one of the eighteenth century’s greatest political philosophers.

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