= Probably printed in The Netherlands - paper used with watermark M. Schouten & Co., Wormer. Very rare, issued in an unusual format: palm-sized and oblong, exactly suited to printing two aphorisms per page, ready to be opened at random. In the conscious way its content affects its form (and vice versa), the publication has something of the feel of a modern artist's book, while looking back to the earlier humanist tradition of commonplace books. A compelling production and quite scarce: we find only three holdings in WorldCat. The estimated date derives from another known copy with a dated owner's entry. Weigelt/ Landolt, Bibliographie der Werke Lavaters 307. Pocket collection of religious maxims by the charismatic Swiss poet, theologian, public intellectual, one-time friend of Goethe, and one of the most celebrated and influential literary characters of his time. Today Lavater (1741-1801) is best known in the English-speaking world for his work on physiognomy, but his output was much larger and more varied than his study of facial features in search of character. He especially liked to work in aphoristic forms, where he could be both poetic and philosophical, and which played to his style, which "became strange and effusive" (Wolff, 33). His 1788 APHORISMS ON MAN (translated into English by his friend, the painter Henry Fuseli) was "enormously popular" (Erle, 347), with five editions by 1795. Today it is most famous for the inspiration it provided William Blake, who provided four engravings for the work and whose extensively annotated copy is held by the Huntington Library.