A Letter Concerning Toleration and Other Writings

by John Locke, Mark Goldie (Editor)

Overview

This volume opens with Locke’s Letter Concerning Toleration (1689) and also contains his earlier Essay Concerning Toleration (1667), extracts from the Third Letter for Toleration (1692), and a large body of his briefer essays and memoranda on this theme. As editor Mark Goldie writes in the introduction, A Letter Concerning Toleration “was one of the seventeenth century’s most eloquent pleas to Christians to renounce religious persecution.”

This Liberty Fund edition provides the first fully annotated modern edition of A Letter Concerning Toleration, offering the reader explanatory guidance to Locke’s rich reservoir of references and allusions.

David Womersley is Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. His most recent book is Divinity and State.

Mark Goldie is Reader in British Intellectual History at the University of Cambridge.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780865977914
Publisher:	Liberty Fund, Incorporated
Publication date:	09/20/2010
Series:	Thomas Hollis Library
Pages:	258
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

One of the most famous English philosophers of the 17th century, John Locke, was also a physician and a political theorist. Locke believed that individuals are born with natural rights and is one of the founders of the liberal political philosophy. John Locke is best known for his book, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, which contains his theory of ideas. His other popular works of writing include A Letter Concerning Toleration and Two Treatises of Government.

Table of Contents

The Thomas Hollis Library David Womersley vii

Introduction Mark Goldie ix

Further Reading xxv

Notes on the Texts xxix

Chronology of Locke's Life xli

Acknowledgments xlvii

1 A Letter Concerning Toleration 1

2 Excerpts from A Third Letter for Toleration 69

3 An Essay Concerning Toleration 105

4 Fragments on Toleration 141

Index 191

Editorial Reviews

Reference and Research Book News
April 2011

In an era of renewed religious extremism, when theological conflicts can and do lead to bloodshed on a widespread scale, the philosophy of John Locke remains ever timely. This collection centers on hisLetter Concerning Toleration, composed in 1685, in which Locke, himself a devout Christian, calls on his fellow believers to disavow religious bigotry. It also includes a number of Locke's other works, including his Essay Concerning Toleration, as well as sections from his Third Letter for Toleration and numerous other writings and memoranda. According to the publisher, it is the first time Locke's writings on toleration have been collected and presented in a fully annotated edition.

Studies in English Literature
Summer 2011

John Locke's A Letter Concerning Toleration and Other Writings (edited by Mark Goldie for the Liberty Fund). . . . will be useful for those teaching eighteenth-century religion, literature, and culture, as it also contains a judicious selection of Locke's brief essays and memoranda on the theme of religious toleration. Goldie's is the "first fully annotated edition" of this important text and ought to be attractive to both scholars and students.

From the Publisher