(Vegetarian) Porphyry. Select Works of Porphyry; containing his four books on abstinence from animal food; his treatise on the Homeric cave of the nymphs; and his auxiliaries to the perception of intelligible nature.

xx, 271 + [2] ad pp. Translated from the Greek by Thomas Taylor. (8vo) 22.8x13.5 cm (9x5¼"), later three-quarter cloth & marbled boards, gilt leather spine label. First Edition in English. London: Thomas Rodd, 1823.

First printing in English of the foundation work on vegetarianism, being Thomas Taylor's translation of Porphyry's "  On Abstinence from Animal Food," together with other texts by Porphyry. Porphyry was the primary disciple of Plotinus and the editor of Plotinus' Enneads. Some quotes from his work:  "But to deliver animals to be slaughtered and cooked, and thus be filled with murder, not for the sake of nutriment and satisfying the wants of nature, but making pleasure and gluttony the end of such conduct, is transcendently iniquitous and dire...He who abstains from anything animate...will be much more careful not to injure those of his own species. For he who loves the genus will not hate any species of animals."

Rubbing to edges of boards; two small ink smudges at bottom edge of title page; very good or better, page edges untrimmed. 

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