The Portable Edmund Burke (Portable Library)

Table of Contents

 

THE VIKING PORTABLE LIBRARY

Title Page

Copyright Page

Introduction

 

PART I - CULTURE AND HISTORY

The Reformer

THE CHARACTER OF A FINE GENTLEMAN

A Vindication of Natural Society

A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful

Fragment—An Essay Towards an History of the Laws of England

Book Reviews in the Annual Register

Speech on the Repeal of the Marriage Act

Speeches on Religious Establishment and Toleration

 

PART II - POLITICS AND SOCIETY

Thoughts on the Present Discontents

Speech on the Middlesex Elections

Speech at Mr. Burke’s Arrival in Bristol

Speech on Economical Reform

Speech on a Bill for Shortening the Duration of Parliaments

Speech on a Committee to Inquire into the State of the Representation of the ...

Sketch of a Negro Code

Thoughts and Details on Scarcity

A Letter to a Noble Lord

 

PART III - AMERICA AND REVOLUTION

An Account of the European Settlements in America

Observations on a Late Publication Entitled “The Present State of the Nation”

Speech on American Taxation

Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies

Address to the British Colonists in North America

A Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol on the Affairs of America

 

PART IV - IRELAND AND CATHOLICISM

Tract on the Popery Laws

Address at Bristol on the Gordon Riots and the Catholic Question

A Letter to a Peer of Ireland on tHe Penal Laws Against Irish Catholics

Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe

A Letter to Richard Burke, Esq., on Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland

A Letter to William Smith, Esq., on the Subject of Catholic Emancipation

 

PART V - INDIA AND COLONIALISM

Speech on Mr. Fox’s East India Bill

Speech on the Nabob of Arcot’s Debt

Speeches on the Impeachment of Warren Hastings

 

PART VI - THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Speech on the Army Estimates

Reflections on the Revolution in France

An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs

Thoughts on French Affairs

Letter to a Member of the National Assembly

Letters on a Regicide Peace

 

PART VII - SELECTED LETTERS

To the Duke of Richmond

To William Burgh, Esq.

To the Marquis of Rockingham

To Mons. Dupont

To Philip Francis, Esq.

To Captain Mercer

To Chevalier de la Bintinnaye

To William Weddell, Esq.

To William Elliot

 

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THE VIKING PORTABLE LIBRARY

EDMUND BURKE

 

EDMUND BURKE (1729-97) was born in Dublin, and educated at Abraham Shackleton’s Quaker school in Balitore and Trinity College, Dublin. In 1730 he entered the Middle Temple in London, but soon left law for literature and, later, politics. His first publication, the parodic A Vindication of Natural Society (1756), was followed in 1757 by A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful, a text that was to influence the writers of the Romantic period. His political career began in 1765 when, having become secretary to the then Prime Minister the Marquis of Rockingham, he was made member of Parhament for Wendover. His oratory gained him influence in the Whig party, although he was not to hold office until the downfall of the Tories under Lord North in 1783. Burke became M.P. for Bristol in 1774, but his support for the then unpopular causes of Catholic Emancipation and the relaxation of the Irish Trade laws cost him the seat in 1780. Subsequently elected M.P. for Malton in 1781, he became paymaster of the forces in 1782, resigned with Fox and returned to the same office under the coalition government in 1783. He retired in 1794 and received a large pension from the ministry.

A large part of Burke’s political career was dedicated to the problem of India (he took part in the investigation of the East India Company affair) and he wrote widely on the subject. Throughout his career he wrote and spoke on many of the major governmental and constitutional issues of his day: the troubles in America resulted in his Thoughts on Present Discontents (1770) and Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol (1777), and the French Revolution produced one of his most famous works, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790). This latter work explained at some length his opposition to the doctrines of the revolution and it was this subject that was to be the last great political theme of his public life.

 

ISAAC KRAMNICK was born in 1938 and educated at Harvard University, where he received a B.A. degree in 1959 and a Ph.D. in 1965, and at Peterhouse, Cambridge. He has taught at Harvard, Brandeis, Yale, and Cornell, where he is now professor of government. He is married to Miriam Brody and lives in Ithaca, NewYork.Among his publications are Bolingbroke and His Circle, The Rage of Edmund Burke, and numerous articles on eighteenth-century topics. He has edited The Federalist Papers, William Godwin’s Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, and the Thomas Paine Reader for Penguin Classics. Most recently he is the author, with Barry Sheerman, M.P., of Laski:A Life on the Left, and, with R. Laurence Moore, of The Godless Constitution.

 

Each volume in the Viking Portable Library either presents a representative selection from the works of a single outstanding writer or offers a comprehensive anthology on a special subject. Averaging 700 pages in length and designed for compactness and readability, these books fill a need not met by other compilations. All are edited by distinguished authorities who have written introductory essays and included other helpful material.

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First published in Penguin Books 1999

 

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Copyright © Penguin Putnam Inc., 1999

All rights reserved

 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797.
[Selections. 1999]
The portable Edmund Burke / edited with an introduction
by Isaac Kramnick.
p. cm.—(The Viking portable library)
Includes bibliographical references.

eISBN : 978-1-101-12740-7

1. Political science—Early works to 1800.