Abbreviations
The following abbreviations are used in the notes:
- E (C)
David Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary: A Critical Edition, ed. Tom L. Beauchamp and Mark A. Box (2 vols., Oxford, 2021).
- E (LF)
David Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller, rev. ed. (Indianapolis, IN, 1987).
- EHU
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding: A Critical Edition, ed. Tom L. Beauchamp (Oxford, 2000).
- EPM
David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals: A Critical Edition, ed. Tom L. Beauchamp (Oxford, 1998).
- HE
David Hume, The History of England: From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688, ed. William B. Todd (6 vols., Indianapolis, IN, 1983).
- HL
David Hume, The Letters of David Hume, ed. J. Y. T. Greig (2 vols., Oxford, 1932).
- NHL
David Hume, New Letters of David Hume, ed. Raymond Klibansky and Ernest Campbell Mossner (Oxford, 1954).
- T
David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature: A Critical Edition, ed. David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton (2 vols., Oxford, 2007).
Hume never published a work with the one-word title ‘Essays’. The work discussed in this Guide originated with Hume’s Essays, Moral and Political (first edition, 1741), a title that was retained by Hume in two subsequent editions (1742) and (1748), before he adopted the title Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects (first edition, 1753). The latter constituted an amalgam of Essays, Moral and Political and Hume’s Political Discourses (first edition, 1752). In 1760, Hume adopted the title Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary (first edition, London, 1760), which constituted a new amalgam of Essays and Treatises on Several Subjects with Hume’s Four Dissertations (1757). An explanation of the bibliographical complexity involved in the commingling of these editions is beyond the scope of this Guide, but it is fortunately now the subject of careful study in E (C).
E (C) has superseded E (LF), which had served as the standard edition since its publication in 1987. The chapters here refer to both editions by their sigla to facilitate cross-referencing between existing scholarship – which has almost always used E (LF) – and any future scholarship – which ought now to prefer E (C). The transcriptions restrictedly favour the readings in E (C).
