Lot n° 39
Estimation :
1000 - 1200
EUR
FONTENELLE. Republic of the philosophers, or History of the - Lot 39
FONTENELLE. Republic of the philosophers, or History of the Ajaoiens. Geneva, 1768. Small in-8, re-used vellum printed and handwritten on verso (Hard contemporary binding).
Posthumous first edition of this utopia (written in 1682) which, according to H. G. Funke (Voltaire Foundation, 1998), is the first atheist and communist utopia in French literature.
The Ajaoiens build a society of virtuous, strictly materialistic atheists, in which the state and man no longer owe anything to God. All the major themes of the democratic utopias of the author's time (1657-1757) can be found here: absence of private property, moderate work, frugal and healthy diet, geometric urbanization, public stores, pacifism, measured polygamy, etc.
The letter on Indian nudity follows.
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