I found Robert
Latta's translation of the Monadology that I
used in my remarks on the internet, and I
believe I have seen quite a long time ago a thin
American paperback version of this version.
However, in September 2001 I found and bought an
antiquarian edition of:
Leibniz
The Monadology
and
other philosophical writings
translated
with introduction and notes
by
Robert Latta, M.A., D.Phil. (Edin.)
lecturer in logic and metaphysics at the
University of St. Andrews
This information I
reproduce from the title page (apart from
typesetting). This book I now owe is a "Second
Impression 1925 First Edition 1898", and is
said to "have been produced photographically
(...) from sheets of the First Edition". This
second impression is by the Oxford University
Press.
Altogether, this
edition has 437 pages. It contains an admirable
introduction of over 200 pages, and over a 100
pages of other translations from Leibniz's
Collected Works. All translations have been
plentifully supplied with footnotes, that are
usually quite good and informative, and indeed
Latta's translation of the Monadology comes with
144 footnotes in all, that taken together
contain more text than the Monadology.
It is a pity these
footnotes are not also on the internet, and
someone better equipped with health and scanners
than I am should put them there, as a matter of
justice to Robert Latta and to his
translation.
Also, while I have no
doubt that Bertrand Russell and C.D. Broad,
whose books on Leibniz I read, were more capable
philosophers than Robert Latta, Latta's book is
quite good, and deserves to be read and to be
more widely known: It is a good selection with
good introductions and notes, and it contains
more Leibnizian philosophy than Russell and
Broad combined, for these mostly comment and
paraphrase (though Russell's text contains an
appendix with translated passages).
So for me this discovery
of Latta's book has the status of discovering a
minor classic, unfortunately far less known than
it ought to be. Indeed, I had to cut most of the pages
in the copy I bought: Uncut, unread, and not
enjoyed for 76 years! "Books have their own
fate" (as the Latin translates).