.jpg?w=1)
Details
HOBBES, Thomas (1588-1679). Leviathan: or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill. London: Andrew Crooke, 1651.
2° (285 x 184mm). Engraved additional title, title with woodcut head ornament, folding letterpress table. (Light soiling to the engraved title, with light wear to fore-edge, small repair in margin of A1.) Contemporary English calf, sides ruled in blind, spine tooled in gilt with crowned dolphin ornament (front joint just starting, a few stains). Provenance: Walter Buckland 'his book 1665'(inscription, bookplate and wax seal) -- Rasbotham (possibly Dorning Rasbotham [1730-91], antiquary and playwright; title inscription and a few annotations, one in shorthand, these possibly in another 17th-century hand) -- John Wilkes (19th-century inscription) -- Oxford, Pusey House (stamp on endpaper).
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, of the most important 17th-century English work of political philosophy. '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'. Hobbes was in Paris when the edition was being printed, receiving 'every week a sheet to correct'. A fresh copy. Macdonald & Hargreaves 42; Norman 1082; Pforzheimer 491; PMM 138; Wing H-2246.
2° (285 x 184mm). Engraved additional title, title with woodcut head ornament, folding letterpress table. (Light soiling to the engraved title, with light wear to fore-edge, small repair in margin of A1.) Contemporary English calf, sides ruled in blind, spine tooled in gilt with crowned dolphin ornament (front joint just starting, a few stains). Provenance: Walter Buckland 'his book 1665'(inscription, bookplate and wax seal) -- Rasbotham (possibly Dorning Rasbotham [1730-91], antiquary and playwright; title inscription and a few annotations, one in shorthand, these possibly in another 17th-century hand) -- John Wilkes (19th-century inscription) -- Oxford, Pusey House (stamp on endpaper).
FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, of the most important 17th-century English work of political philosophy. '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'. Hobbes was in Paris when the edition was being printed, receiving 'every week a sheet to correct'. A fresh copy. Macdonald & Hargreaves 42; Norman 1082; Pforzheimer 491; PMM 138; Wing H-2246.
Special notice
No VAT on hammer price or buyer's premium.