2 Baruch Spinoza first editions are documented on this shelf, from Ethica (first printed in B.d.S. Opera Posthuma) (1677) to Ethica (in Opera Posthuma) (1677) across 2 different publishers. Each linked guide gives the points of issue that separate a true first printing of that Baruch Spinoza title from later printings and book-club copies — the publisher and year to expect, the number-line or edition-statement conventions, and the tells that show up in online listings.

Identification only, per the house rule: no prices and no appraisals here. Checking a Baruch Spinoza copy in hand? Type the title into the First-Edition Checker or photograph the copyright page with Snap & Sort.

Ethica (first printed in B.d.S. Opera Posthuma) — 1677 · [Jan Rieuwertsz], AmsterdamQuarto. The title page is the point: it reads only "B.D.S. Opera Posthuma, quorum series post praefationem exhibetur", with a woodcut device and no place of publication and no publisher named — the imprint was deliberately suppressed, and the author is identified by initials alone. Amsterdam and Jan Rieuwertsz are a bibliographic reconstruction, which is why every responsible catalogue record brackets them:…. Amsterdam 1677 Latin is the true first, but it does not stand alone: the Dutch De Nagelate Schriften van B.d.S. (Glazemaker's translation, Kingma & Offenberg 25) was published simultaneously in 1677, not afterward — the editorial team delivered both copy-texts to the printer together, and scholars decline to award precedence to either. Both are collected as first editions of their respective languages; the Dutch…. No book-club edition exists for a 1677 quarto. The reprint tells that matter: the work was banned in Holland in 1678 and placed on the Index in 1679, so later 17th- and 18th-century appearances are separate editions, not printings. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarly editions (Paulus; Van Vloten & Land; Gebhardt) and modern anastatic/photographic facsimiles of the 1677 sheets circulate and are what donors….
Ethica (in Opera Posthuma) — 1677 · Printed by Israël de Paull for Jan Rieuwertsz, AmsterdamQuarto, 1677. The defining point is what the title page does NOT say: it reads "B.d.S. Opera Posthuma, Quorum series post Praefationem exhibetur" with a woodcut device and the date MDCLXXVII, but names no author beyond the initials B.d.S., and gives no place of printing and no printer or bookseller. The Amsterdam / Jan Rieuwertsz attribution is bibliographic, not printed — bibliographical research (Jagersma,…. The Latin Opera Posthuma (1677) is the true first of the Ethics and the original-language text. Its Dutch twin, De Nagelate Schriften van B.d.S. (1677), was prepared by the same circle and printed for the same bookseller and appeared alongside it; both are dated 1677 and both are collected — the Latin as the original, the Dutch as the first edition in Dutch. There is no contemporary English edition: the Ethics…. No book-club tradition exists for this title. The realistic look-alikes are later collected editions of Spinoza's works and 20th-century photographic reprints of the 1677 sheets, plus the many modern English translations of the Ethics. Any volume whose title page carries a printed place or publisher, a date other than MDCLXXVII, an author's name spelled out rather than the initials B.d.S., or English text, is not….

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