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HOBBES, Thomas (1588-1679). Leviathan: or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill. London: Andrew Crooke, 1651.
2° (280 x 185mm). Engraved additional title, title with woodcut ornament of a head in a frame of scrolls and tassels, folding letterpress table. (Light browning to the title and margins of the engraved title, with a few marginal short closed tears and small chips, occasional light scattered spotting, short unobtrusive worm-track to gutter of a few leaves at foot, tear to Gg4) Contemporary English calf, spine and sides (boards detached). Provenance: very occasional contemporary marginalia -- Henry ?White (contemporary ownership inscription)
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, OF THE MOST IMPORTANT 17TH-CENTURY ENGLISH WORK OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, with the head ornament on the title-page. 'The fundamental nature of his speculation has stimulated philosophers from Spinoza to the school of Bentham, who reinstated him in his position as the most original political philosopher of his time' (PMM). The celebrated frontispiece illustrates his view of the State as an aggregation of individual men submitting voluntarily to the absolute sway of the sovereign who is the 'soul' of the 'common-wealth'. It was in a hypothetical state of nature, deprived of political organisation, that Hobbes memorably described human lives as 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.' He was in Paris when the edition was being printed, receiving 'every week a sheet to correct.' Macdonald & Hargreaves 42; Norman 1082; Pforzheimer 491; PMM 138; Wing H-2246.
2° (280 x 185mm). Engraved additional title, title with woodcut ornament of a head in a frame of scrolls and tassels, folding letterpress table. (Light browning to the title and margins of the engraved title, with a few marginal short closed tears and small chips, occasional light scattered spotting, short unobtrusive worm-track to gutter of a few leaves at foot, tear to Gg4) Contemporary English calf, spine and sides (boards detached). Provenance: very occasional contemporary marginalia -- Henry ?White (contemporary ownership inscription)
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, OF THE MOST IMPORTANT 17TH-CENTURY ENGLISH WORK OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, with the head ornament on the title-page. 'The fundamental nature of his speculation has stimulated philosophers from Spinoza to the school of Bentham, who reinstated him in his position as the most original political philosopher of his time' (PMM). The celebrated frontispiece illustrates his view of the State as an aggregation of individual men submitting voluntarily to the absolute sway of the sovereign who is the 'soul' of the 'common-wealth'. It was in a hypothetical state of nature, deprived of political organisation, that Hobbes memorably described human lives as 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.' He was in Paris when the edition was being printed, receiving 'every week a sheet to correct.' Macdonald & Hargreaves 42; Norman 1082; Pforzheimer 491; PMM 138; Wing H-2246.
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