Essays on Various Subjects of Taste, Morals, and National Policy.

Georgetown: Published by Joseph Milligan. Jacob Gideon, Junior, Printer,, 1822. among the best answers to the charges of our national... backwardness First edition in book form of these 15 studies of American nationalism, civil society, education, and finance. The focus on civil society attracted the attention of both Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who appointed Tucker professor of political economy and moral philosophy at the newly-formed University of Virginia. George Tucker (1775-1861) served in the House of Representatives for Virginia from 1819 to 1825, after which he held the moral philosophy professorship until 1845. During that time, he wrote A Voyage to the Moon (1827), among the earliest American science fiction novels and among the earliest works of science fiction to depict an indigenous lunar civilisation. It is interesting to note that the present volume includes an essay "On Scientific Pursuits". Madison judged Tucker's Essays "among the best answers to the charges of our national... backwardness" (quoted in McLean, p. 25). Many of the essays were first published in 1814-15 in the Port Folio volume. Octavo (212 x 126 mm). Contemporary red straight-ribbed quarter calf, smooth spine lettered, decorated, and with Greek key rolls tooled in gilt, mottled paper sides, vellum tips, marbled endpapers. Housed in custom black cloth chemise and red cloth slipcase. Short ink annotation to p. xi, touching text. Light bumping and rubbing, colour retouched at joints and extremities, spots of abrasion and finger soiling, cosmetic splits to joints, moderate mottling and browning to contents, chips to sig. 41.3 and rear free endpaper: a good copy. Robert Colin McLean, George Tucker, 1961.