A Gift from John Locke to Jean Le Clerc
I work as a subject librarian in Tresoar, the provincial library of the Dutch province of Friesland, in Leeuwarden. I would like to report a curious experience of serendipity that is related to John Locke. Recently, while giving a tour in my library, I randomly grabbed an old book from the shelves. The back of the folio promised me a work by John Locke, and indeed, the book was a rare copy of the second edition of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, printed in 1694. But what really surprised me was an inscription on the first end-leaf. The inscription is unsigned, but none the less it was immediately clear to me: this was written by Locke himself!