In his famous Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Edmund Burke excoriated French revolutionary leaders for recklessly destroying France's venerable institutions and way of life. But his war against the French intelligentsia did not end there, and Burke continued to take pen in hand against the Jacobins until his death in 1797.
This new collection brings together for the first time Burke's most important essays and letters on the French Revolution. There are seven items in the collection. Taken together, they anticipate, refine, and embellish Burke's Reflections. Included are Burke's "Letter to a Member of the National Assembly," in which he assails Jean Jacques Rousseau, the patron saint of the French Revolution; Burke's "Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs," in which he presents his classic defense of the Glorious Revolution of 1688; and his "A Letter to a Noble Lord," in which he defends his life and career against his detractors and, according to John Morley, writes "the most splendid repartee in the English language."
A foreword and headnotes to each selection point the reader to some of the key issues.
Daniel E. Ritchie is Professor of English Literature at Bethel College.
