1759 Rare French 1stED - The Oracle of New Philosophers - L'Oracle des Nouveaux Philosophes by l'Abbé Guyon on Voltaire.
Author: Abbé Claude-Marie Guyon.
Title: L'Oracle des Nouveaux Philosophes. Pour servir de suite et d'éclaircissement aux oeuvres de M. de Voltaire.
Language: Text in French
Publisher: A Berne, no publisher, 1759. First edition.
Size : 6.5" X 4.5 ".
Pages : xvi-326 pages.
Binding: Very good full calf leather binding (hinges fine, overall slightly worn and scuffed - as shown) under a removable protective mylar cover.
Content: Very good content (bright and tight, rare foxing and staining, name of a previous owner on half-title page).
Estimate : (USD 250 - USD 400)
The book: Rare and attractive French 18th-century First edition of this volume written by Abbé Guyon in response to Voltaire's Poëme sur la Religion Naturelle. In the form of worldly conversations, the author demonstrates the inconsistencies and errors of the famous enemy of the Christian religion, whom he calls here, ironically "the Oracle of the New Philosophers".
The author: Claude-Marie Guyon, born in Lons-le-Saunier on December 13, 1699 and died in Paris in 1771, is a French historian. Guyon embraced the ecclesiastical state and entered the congregation of the Oratory, but he left it after a few years and, having settled in Paris, became one of the collaborators of Abbé Desfontaines, who, in recognition, retouched the style of some of his writings.
He then published several works, written in a less brilliant than solid manner, and which made him known as an educated and hardworking man. His zeal for the defense of religion exposed him to Voltaire's sarcasm and earned him a pension from the clergy.