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Lot 2182

HOBBES, THOMAS. 1588-1679.

11 June 2008, 13:00 EDT
New York

Sold for US$3,600 inc. premium

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HOBBES, THOMAS. 1588-1679.

Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill. London [but Amsterdam]: for Andrew Ckooke, 1651. A-Ddd4. Additional engraved title-page. Folio (284 x 186 mm). Period full brown mottled calf, spine in six compartments, one of which with gilt-lettered tan leather spine label, the others with gilt decoration. Engraved title and subsequent three leaves misbound, generally internally clean, some wear to covers and joints, spine somewhat dry.

First edition, second printing with “bear” ornament to title-page. Leviathan was written in Paris, where Hobbes fled at the onset of the English Civil War to become tutor to the Prince of Wales. The work is a reaction to that war, and addresses the limitations of both the parliamentary system and the divine right of kings. The state, Hobbes argues, is a great “leviathan” or monster made up of individuals: the individual should always submit to the state because any government is better than anarchy. The work provoked a firestorm of protests from both the right and the left, and it remains today one of the most original political treatises of all time. Pforzheimer 491; Printing and the Mind of Man 138.
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