Maggs Bros. Ltd.

An attractive copy of the rare correct first printing of the Prolegomena Towards a Future Metaphysics, written by Kant as a clarification of the Critique of Pure Reason, which he believed had been widely misunderstood on publication two years previously. It became one of Kant's most influential works and he incorporated much of it into the second edition of the Critique, itself now accepted as 'Kant's great achievement which concluded finally the lines on which philosophical speculation had proceeded in the eighteenth century' (PMM). Schopenhauer described the book as the 'finest and most comprehensible of Kant's principal works'.

Three printings of the Prolegomena appeared in the same year, identifiable by the varying woodcut head and tailpieces. The present example is the correct first printing with the floriated bar headpiece on page 3 (rather than the second and third printings that have the two cherubs headpiece - Warda 76 & 77) and the floriated bar on page 222 (rather than the bar with climbing leaves - Warda 76 - or a small ornamental piece with climbing flora - Warda 77). Finally, on page 78, line 8 the word “subjektiv” appears rather than “objektiv” – which was corrected in the two later printings. The second and third printings are relatively common, no doubt with larger print runs on account of the commercial success of the book, but examples of the correct first printing are notably scarce.

Warda, 75.