Selected Bibliography:
David Hume

By Adam Potkay,
College of William & Mary

Last revised 4 July 2000

Bibliographies

• Primary Works

  • T. E. Jessop, A Bibliography of David Hume and of Scottish Philosophy from Francis Hutcheson to Lord Balfour (London: A. Brown, 1938; rpt. New York: Russell & Russell, 1966). Useful but dated.
  • Ernest Campbell Mossner, "Hume's Four Dissertations: An Essay in Biography and Bibliography," Modern Philology 48:1 (1950): 37-57.
  • David Hume and the Eighteenth-Century British Thought: An Annotated Catalogue (Tokyo: Chuo Univ. Library, 1986). Catalogues the extensive library of Hume editions collected by the scholar John Vladimir Price; also contains useful comparative tables of the different editions of both Hume's Essays and his History of England.
  • David Fate Norton and Mary J. Norton, The David Hume Library (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Bibliographical Society in association with the National Library of Scotland, 1996). Although no catalogue of Hume's own library survives, the Nortons have traced the path of Hume's books to his brother and sister, then to his nephew, David Hume the Younger (later Baron Hume), and finally to Thomas Stevenson, an Edinburgh bookseller.
  
  

• Secondary Works

  • Roland Hall, Fifty Years of Hume Scholarship: A Bibliographical Guide (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1978). Covers the period 1925-76. Hall covers the Hume literature from 1977-85 in essays appearing annually in the journal Hume Studies, 1978-88.
  • William E. Morris, "The Hume Literature, 1986-1993," Hume Studies 20:2 (Nov. 1994): 299-326. Morris covers the literature from 1994 and 1996 in the November issues of Hume Studies, 1995 to 1997. Unlike his predecessor Roland Hall, Morris excludes items appearing in the journal Hume Studies.
  • "Index of Hume Studies," Hume Studies 19:2 (November 1993): 327-64.
  
  

Editions

• Collected Works

  • The Philosophical Works of David Hume, ed. T. H. Green and T. H. Grose, 4 vols. (London 1874-5; rpt. Aalen: Scientia Verlag, 1964). This edition is largely out of date; until the appearance of the collected works currently in progress, Hume's works should be cited from the following individual editions.
  
  

• Individual Works

  • A Treatise of Human Nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, rev. P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978).
  • Enquiries Concerning Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, rev. P. H. Nidditch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975).
  • Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, ed. Norman Kemp Smith (London: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1947).
  • The Natural History of Religion and Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, ed. A. Wayne Colver and John Vladimir Price (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976).
  • Essays Moral, Political, and Literary, ed. Eugene F. Miller (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1985).
  • The History of England, ed. William B. Todd, 6 vols. (Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1983).
  • A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1745). Rpt. with an Intro. by Ernest C. Mossner and John V. Price (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1957).
  • A Concise and Genuine Account of the Dispute between Mr. Hume and M. Rousseau; with the Letters That Passed between Them during their Controversy (London, 1766).
  • Ernest Campbell Mossner, "Hume's Early Memoranda, 1729-40: The Complete Text," Journal of the History of Ideas 9 (1948): 492-518.
  • David Raynor, "Hume on Wilkes and Liberty: Two Possible Contributions to the London Chronicle," Eighteenth-Century Studies 13 (1980): 365-76.
  • David Raynor, ed., Sister Peg: A Pamphlet Hitherto Unknown, by David Hume (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982). The attribution of this pamphlet to Hume remains controversial.
  • David Raynor, "Who Invented the Invisible Hand? Hume's Praise of Laissez-Faire in a Newly Discovered Pamphlet," TLS August 14, 1998: 22.
  • M. A. Stewart, "Hume's 'Bellmen's Petition': The Original Text," Hume Studies 23:1 (April 1997): 3-7
  • M. A. Stewart, "An Early Fragment on Evil," in Hume and Hume's Connexions, ed. M. A. Stewart and John P. Wright (University Park: Pennsylvania Univ. Press, 1994), 160-70.
  
  

• Correspondence

  • The Letters of David Hume, ed. J. Y. T. Greig, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932).
  • New Letters of David Hume, ed. Raymond Klibansky and Ernest Campbell Mossner (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1954).
  
  

Biographies

• Ernest Campbell Mossner, The Life of David Hume (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson: 1954; 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980). The standard biography.
• -----, The Forgotten Hume: Le Bon David (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1943). Mossner's early attempt to situate Hume within his historical milieu..
• J. Y. T. Greig, David Hume (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1931). A literate, witty, and unjustly neglected work. As an instructive contrast to Mossner's serene and saintly Hume, Greig offers us a more feisty and pugnacious character.
• John Hill Burton, Life and Correspondence of David Hume, 2 vols. (Edinburgh, 1846). Largely superseded, but still contains several items of interest, including some (not very good) verses attributed to Hume.
• Jerome Christensen, Practicing Enlightenment: Hume and the Formation of a Literary Career (Madison: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1987). A post-structuralist or "non-mimetic" biography of Hume. Includes deliciously wicked interpretations of Hume's relationships with the Comtesse de Boufflers and Rousseau.

Criticism

• Journals

  • Hume Studies (1975-).
  • Bulletin of the Hume Society (1971-). Contains short reviews as well as information on the annual international Hume Society conference.
  
  

• Collections and Festschriften

  • Stanley Tweyman, ed. David Hume: Critical Assessments, 6 vols. (London: Routledge, 1995). An extensive collection of articles on Hume, most of them previously published. The collection's only limitation is that it slights Hume's historical and aesthetic writings. The volumes are divided according to the following topics:
    • Volume 1: Epistemology, Reason;
    • Volume 2: Induction, Scepticism;
    • Volume 3: Space and Time, Ontology, Mental Activity, Naturalism, Causality, External World, Personal Identity and Self;
    • Volume 4: Ethics, Passions, Sympathy, "Is" and "Ought";
    • Volume 5: Religion;
    • Volume 6: Politics, Economics, Justice, Miscellaneous.
    
    
  • V. C. Chappell, ed., Hume: A Collection of Critical Essays (Garden City, NY: Anchor Books, 1966).
  • William B. Todd, ed., Hume and the Enlightenment: Essays Presented to Ernest Campbell Mossner (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1974).
  • Donald Livingston and J. King, eds., Hume: A Re-evaluation (New York: Fordham Univ. Press, 1976).
  • Donald Livingston and Marie Martin, eds., Hume as Philosopher of Society, Politics and History (Rochester: Univ. of Rochester Press, 1991). 14 articles reprinted from the Journal of the History of Ideas, 1941-1984.
  • M. A. Stewart and John P. Wright, eds., Hume and Hume's Connexions (University Park: The Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 1994). Excellent essays on Hume in relation to Hutcheson, Butler, Reid and Kant; to natural law and utilitarianism; to the early modern discussion of miracles and the ancient art of the philosophical dialogue.
  • J. J. MacIntosh and H. A. Meynell, eds., Faith, Scepticism and Personal Identity: A Festschrift for Terence Penelhum (Calgary, Alberta: Univ. of Calgary Press, 1994).
  • David Fate Norton, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Hume (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993). A solid collection of introductory essays on topics ranging from Hume's science of mind to his political theory, political economy, aesthetic theory, and historiography.
  • James Fieser, ed., Early Responses to Hume (Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2000-). A new series of 10 projected volumes, collecting hundreds of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century critical publications (book extracts, reviews, pamphlets) on the gamut of Hume's writings. Currently available (2000):
    • Volumes 1 and 2, Early Responses to Hume's Moral, Literary and Political Writings;
    • Volumes 3 and 4, Early Responses to Hume's Metaphysical and Epistemological Writings.
    
    
  
  

• Selected Monographs

  • Norman Kemp Smith, The Philosophy of David Hume: A Critical Study of its Origins and Central Doctrines (London: Macmillan, 1941; rpt. 1964). The starting point for the 20th-century study of Hume's Treatise and Enquiries. Smith maintains that Hume's philosophy can be more adequately described as naturalistic than as sceptical.
  • Laurence L. Bongie, David Hume: Prophet of the Counter-revolution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965; rpt. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1998). A valuable study of Hume's History of England and its reception in late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century France.
  • Pall S. Ardal, Passion and Value in Hume's Treatise (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1966; 2nd ed. 1989). An important analysis of Hume's conception of the passions, moral sentiments, and sympathy.
  • James Noxon, Hume's Philosophical Development: A Study of His Methods (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1973). Provocatively argues for the philosophical superiority of Hume's later works to his youthful Treatise.
  • Barry Stroud, Hume (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978). A widely cited work, chiefly concerned with the Treatise.
  • J. C. A. Gaskin, Hume's Philosophy of Religion (London: Macmillan, 1978; 2nd ed. 1988). Draws attention to the broad scope of Hume's philosophical writings on religion, and argues for their (roughly speaking, Deistical) consistency.
  • Peter Jones, Hume's Sentiments: Their Ciceronian and French Contexts (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Univ. Press, 1982). An work of intellectual history that situates Hume's philosophical and aesthetic writings in relation to Cicero and to French authors such as Bayle and Dubos.
  • David Fate Norton, David Hume: Common Sense-Moralist, Sceptical Metaphysician (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1982). Against Kemp Smith's wholly naturalistic interpretation of the Treatise and Enquiries, Norton argues that Hume's philosophy balances naturalism and Academic scepticism.
  • Donald W. Livingston, Hume's Philosophy of Common Life (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1984). The first systematic study of the relation between Hume's philosophical and historical work. Livingston has done more than any other twentieth-century philosopher to address Hume's body of writings as a coherent whole; see also his Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium: Hume's Pathology of Philosophy (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1998).
  • M. A. Box, The Suasive Art of David Hume (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1990). Contains a valuable chapter on Hume's complex relation to the "Scriblerian Humanists," Swift and Pope.
  • Donald T. Siebert, The Moral Animus of David Hume (Newark: Univ. of Delaware Press, 1990). Interprets Hume's History of England as a work of the moral imagination; convincingly shows that as a historian Hume allows religion -- of a Catholic or Anglican variety -- a positive social role.
  • Keith E. Yandell, Hume's "Inexplicable Mystery": His Views on Religion (Philadelphia: Temple Univ. Press, 1990). Sees Hume's Natural History of Religion the center-piece of his religious thought.
  • Annette Baier, A Progress of Sentiments: Reflections on Hume's Treatise (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1991). A masterful reading of the Treatise as a unified whole. Baier's later Moral Prejudices: Essays on Ethics (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1994) contains essays on Hume's amenability to feminist philosophers.
  • John B. Stewart, Opinion and Reform in Hume's Political Philosophy (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1992). Stewart champions Hume as an enlightened liberal rather than, as he is often seen, a conservative philosopher. The book is largely occupied, however, with carefully situating Books 2 and 3 of the Treatise in relation to Hume's intellectual lineage from Grotius to Hutcheson and Butler.
  • Adam Potkay, The Fate of Eloquence in the Age of Hume (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1994). Using Hume's essay "Of Eloquence" as a focal point, examines the eighteenth-century rise and fall of oratory as a stylistic and civic ideal. See also Potkay, The Passion for Happiness: Samuel Johnson and David Hume (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 2000), for a broader assessment of the influence of Ciceronian humanism on British Enlightenment culture.
  • Jennifer Herdt, Religion and Faction in Hume's Moral Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997). Links Hume's concept of sympathy from the Treatise with his later, historical concern with the destructiveness of religious zeal and faction.
  • Don Garrett, Cognition and Commitment in Hume's Philosophy (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1997). Historically as well as philosophically useful, this work outlines and attempts to resolve the interpretive puzzles that have arisen around central Humean topics, including the inductive origins of belief, the nature of causation, the freedom of human actions, the belief in miracles, and the nature of personal identity.
  
  

Electronic Resources

• The Hume Society Homepage, maintained by Secretary-Treasurer of the Hume Society, Mikael M. Karlsson, University of Iceland.

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