Four volumes, 4to, (285 x 230 mm). xxiii, (1), 22, (2), 23-269, (7), 301, (23) pp. (10), 195, (37), 120, 160, 32 pp. (4), 507, (27), 37, (1) pp. (10), 304, 91, (1), 105-143, (1), 156, (3), 156-218 [i.e. 232], (8) pp., engraved portrait frontispiece and a total of 25 engraved plates (two in original hand colour), including three of D. A. Freher’s zodiacal and anatomical tables with mounted flaps and complex multi-layer overlays; one double-page folding plate with overlays; additional fold-out. Contemporary speckled calf, boards with gilt double-fillet borders, sympathetically rebacked in late 19th century calf, spines ruled in gilt and retaining two older gilt-lettered morocco labels, edges sprinkled red; gently rubbed with light scuffing and edge-wear, upper corners of Vol. IV more worn, but sound and firm, joints intact. Scattered light pencil marginalia, occasional light marginal water-staining, not affecting text; volume I closed tear to outer margin of leaf Mm1, without loss, volume III leaf Y1 with small hole affecting a few letters; a few leaves near end with slight corner creasing, volume IV light marginal staining and a thin worm-track to outer margins of twelve leaves (quires Ii-Ll), entirely confined to the margin and without loss of text; overall a clean, solid, attractive set.

The defining visual feature is the suite of 25 engraved plates, including Dionysius Andreas Freher’s "tables" with mounted flaps and remarkable layered overlays, devised to render Böhme's cosmology legible as diagram and emblem; two are superbly hand-coloured by a contemporary artist. Conceived in the milieu of the 18th-century evangelical revival and the English reception of continental theosophy, the "Law edition" became the best-known British conduit for Böhme's thought, whose imaginative symbolism resonated strongly from early Quaker circles to Romantic and visionary art.

The bibliographical history of the edition is famously complex, and this set is exemplary in its survival of variant states: Vol. II retains its title-page in two states (one dated 1764, one dated 1763 without "Vol. II"), and Vol. IV includes two different English versions of The Way to Christ, together with variant settings of associated dialogues.

A particularly desirable copy, wide-margined and cleanly preserved, with the fragile overlay plates intact and sharply impressed, in handsome contemporary bindings.

Provenance:

1. From the library of Robert Newman with his stencilled ownership and date "1791" on the front free endpaper in each volume.

2. Edwin Countryman (New York lawyer and judge).

3. Katharine Edwina Scott Countryman (later Mrs Howard Byron Gray), engraved bookplate (printed 1918) on the front pastedown in each volume.

Caillet 1289. Lowndes 146. Bentley, Blake Bibliography, 559. Buddecke 44-6.