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ALISON, Archibald (1757--1839)
Essays on the nature and principles of taste. By Archibald Alison, LL.B. F.R.S. London and Edinburgh, ...
Edinburgh (Place), printed for Bell & Bradfute, and Archd. Constable and Co. Edinburgh; F.C. and J. Rivington, and Constable, Hunter, Park, and Hunter, London,, 1811.
2 vols ; 21.2 cm. (8°)
I: xxix, [1], 376 p.
II: [2], [v]--vi, 447, [1] p.

This work, first published in 1790, is "one of the most readily accessible and best illustrated contributions to an eighteenth-century English and Scottish tradition of associationist psychology" (ODNB). Following Edmund Burke, Alison argued that taste was a consequence of the imagination's response to viewed objects, but privileged the role of the observer's mental associations over that of instinctive sense.

Copy Notes Imperfect; wanting the half-title. Bought from Thomas Boone on 9 September 1817 for 14s. (Archive 16/12/63).

Binding C19th half calf, gilt double-rule spine, marbled-paper boards. Bound by E. Hutchinson for 3s. 6d. on 23 June 1823. (Priv. Corr. XVI.E.6.29).

Reference Number 1599

Additional Names Thomas Boone; Hutchinson, Edwin


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