The History of England (1754–62) is David Hume's great work on England's history was written in installments while he was serving as librarian to the Faculty of Advocates in Edinburgh. It was published in six volumes in 1754, 1756, 1759, and 1762. His History became a best-seller, finally giving him the financial independence he had long sought. Both the British Library and the Cambridge University Library still list him as "David Hume, the historian."[1] More a category of books than a single work, Hume's History spanned "from the invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution of 1688" and went through over 100 editions. Many considered it the standard history of England until Thomas Macaulay's The History of England from the Accession of James the Second.
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Although the correct title of the collected volumes is "The History of England" it is sometimes mistakenly referred to as "The History of Great Britain". According to the British Library, "The History of Great Britain" refers to the last two volumes (vols 5 and 6) of "The History of England".[2]
Since the time of its publication, Hume's History has been accused of historical revisionism intending to promote toryism. In the United States, founding father, Thomas Jefferson considered it a "poison" and was so critical of the work that he censored it from the University of Virginia library. In an August 12, 1810 letter to William Duane Jefferson wrote: "It is this book which has undermined the free principles of the English government, [...]" And in a letter to John Adams dated November 25, 1816, he wrote: “This single book has done more to sap the free principles of the English Constitution than the largest standing army [...]" Though generally acknowledged as a plagiarized version of Hume's work, John Baxter’s "A New and Impartial History of England" (1796) was cited by Jefferson as a remedy to Hume's revisionism: "He has taken Hume's work, corrected in the text his misrepresentations, supplied the truths which he suppressed, and yet has given the mass of the work in Hume's own words."
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