It introduces readers to a man largely unknown outside academia but who was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment and who championed, against powerful opposition, many of the rights and liberty’s we take for granted today. As a chronological account it covers and discusses Price’s writing on all the issues which interested him. Among them are political and civil liberty, parliamentary reform, life assurance, mathematics, moral philosophy and the American and French Revolutions. His comments on all these are as important today, and as enlightening, as they were in his time. The book is the first to make extensive use of Price’s correspondence with the likes of Joseph Priestley, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and newly discovered letters from Price’s nephew in Paris during the July 1789 Revolution. This coupled with the chronological approach gives the reader an insight into his thinking and political developments during crucial periods of the eighteenth century Enlightenment and provides a high readable narrative for the general reader.

This third volume in the series completes the known extant correspondence of Richard Price (1732-1791). Perhaps best known as a political philosopher, Price made significant contributions to Anglo-American intellectual life in the late 18th century in a variety of fields. This collection of letters covers a range of topics including religion, theology, politics, education, liberty, finance, demography and insurance.