Bonhams 1793 : HOBBES (THOMAS) Leviathan, or, the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civill, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, 1651

Leviathan, or, the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civill, FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE, with winged head ornament on title, additional engraved title laid down, folding letterpress table, occasional light spotting and browning, some restorations to titles, table and one or two other leaves, rust hole in B3 affecting 3 or 4 letters, some staining to I4, mainly light dampstaining affecting last few gatherings, early manuscript correction to line 11, p.285, old ownership inscription of R. H. Meyrick, St John's College, Cambridge, on inside front cover, contemporary ruled calf, rebacked [Wing H2246; Macdonald & Hargreaves 42; Pforzheimer 491; PMM 138], folio (279 x 180mm.), Andrew Crooke, 1651

Sold for £2,500 inc. premium

Footnotes

First edition of one of the most important seventeenth century works of political philosophy, where Hobbes describes the state "as a great artificial monster made up of individual men, with an existence which could be traced from its generation through human reason under pressure of human needs to its destruction through civil strife proceeding from human passions. The individual (except to save his own life) should always submit to the State, because any government is better than the anarchy of the natural state" (PMM).