The significance of the exceptionally rare first printing offered here is difficult to overstate. Within this unassuming volume are ideas that helped overturn the political and social order of ancien régime France and would resonate far beyond its borders. The opening article encapsulates their revolutionary force: ‘Men are born and remain free and equal in rights.’ Sovereignty, the Declaration proclaimed, resided fundamentally in the nation; liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression were defined as natural and imprescriptible rights.

Very few examples of this first printing survive in public collections. The volume offered here is accompanied by an equally rare first printing of constitutional articles adopted by the National Assembly. Reflecting the document’s extraordinary importance to the history of human rights, UNESCO inscribed the documentary heritage relating to the ‘Déclaration des droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen’ of 1789 on its Memory of the World International Register in 2003.