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		Cato's Letters
		Essays on Liberty Four Volumes in Two By John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon Edited and annotated by Ronald Hamowy
		Table of Contents Publication Date: July 1995 6 x 9. 1,064 pages. Vol. I. Introduction, publishing history, editor's note, a note on the dates of Cato's Letters, a note on the notes, acknowledgments. Vol. II. Index for both volumes.

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Almost a generation before Washington, Henry, and Jefferson were even born, two Englishmen, concealing their identities with the honored ancient name of Cato, wrote newspaper articles condemning tyranny and advancing principles of liberty that immensely influenced American colonists. The Englishmen were John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon. Their prototype was Cato the Younger (95–46 B.C.), the implacable foe of Julius Caesar and a champion of liberty and republican principles. Their 144 essays were published from 1720 to 1723, originally in the London Journal, later in the British Journal. Subsequently collected as Cato's Letters, these "Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious" became, as Clinton Rossiter has remarked, "the most popular, quotable, esteemed source of political ideas in the colonial period."

This new two-volume edition offers minimally modernized versions of the letters from the four-volume sixth edition printed in London in 1755.

Ronald Hamowy is Professor of History at the University of Alberta, Edmonton.