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MORE, Sir Thomas (1478-1535). A fruteful and pleasaunt worke of the beste state of a publyque weale, and of the newe yle called Utopia; written in Latine by Syr Thomas More knyght, and translated into Englyshe by Raphe Robynson. London: Abraham Vele, 1551.
Small 8o (140 x 92 mm). Black letter, woodcut initials and ornaments. (Single wormhole repaired on lower margin of title and most leaves, some pale even browning.) Tan morocco gilt with inlaid morocco border of red and green, spine with repeated inlaid design, edges gilt, vellum doublures and free endpages, by The Club Bindery, dated 1899 (Leon Maillard, finisher); quarter morocco folding case. Provenance: Robert Hoe (bookplate), sold in Part IV of his sale, Anderson Galleries, New York, 19 November 1972, lot 2273 -- David and Lulu Borowitz (bookplate), purchased at their sale through John F. Fleming, Sotheby's, New York, 15 November 1977, lot 175.
FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH OF MORE'S UTOPIA, and the first edition printed in England. More's most famous literary work, a description of an ideal commonwealth, was written in Latin in 1515-16 and first published in Louvain (1516). It was influenced by Plato's Republic, St. Augustine's De civitate Dei, Vespucci's accounts of the New World, and Erasmus's Institutio principis Christiani. Utopia "was written, like Gulliver's Travels, as a tract for the times, to rub in the lesson of Erasmus; it inveighs against the new statesmanship of all-powerful autocracy and the new economics of large enclosures and the destruction of the old common-field agriculture, just as it pleads for religious tolerance and universal education" (PMM). The earliest English version, translated by Raphe Robinson, was also the first edition printed in England (other latin editions had appeared in Paris [1517] and Basel [1518]).
EXTREMELY RARE: The Prescott copy (sold Christie's New York, 6 February 1981, lot 259) being the only copy offered since this copy in the Borowitz sale. STC 8094. See PMM 47 (Louvain edition). A WIDE-MARGINED COPY.
Small 8o (140 x 92 mm). Black letter, woodcut initials and ornaments. (Single wormhole repaired on lower margin of title and most leaves, some pale even browning.) Tan morocco gilt with inlaid morocco border of red and green, spine with repeated inlaid design, edges gilt, vellum doublures and free endpages, by The Club Bindery, dated 1899 (Leon Maillard, finisher); quarter morocco folding case. Provenance: Robert Hoe (bookplate), sold in Part IV of his sale, Anderson Galleries, New York, 19 November 1972, lot 2273 -- David and Lulu Borowitz (bookplate), purchased at their sale through John F. Fleming, Sotheby's, New York, 15 November 1977, lot 175.
FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH OF MORE'S UTOPIA, and the first edition printed in England. More's most famous literary work, a description of an ideal commonwealth, was written in Latin in 1515-16 and first published in Louvain (1516). It was influenced by Plato's Republic, St. Augustine's De civitate Dei, Vespucci's accounts of the New World, and Erasmus's Institutio principis Christiani. Utopia "was written, like Gulliver's Travels, as a tract for the times, to rub in the lesson of Erasmus; it inveighs against the new statesmanship of all-powerful autocracy and the new economics of large enclosures and the destruction of the old common-field agriculture, just as it pleads for religious tolerance and universal education" (PMM). The earliest English version, translated by Raphe Robinson, was also the first edition printed in England (other latin editions had appeared in Paris [1517] and Basel [1518]).
EXTREMELY RARE: The Prescott copy (sold Christie's New York, 6 February 1981, lot 259) being the only copy offered since this copy in the Borowitz sale. STC 8094. See PMM 47 (Louvain edition). A WIDE-MARGINED COPY.