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Lot 66

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

25 March 2015, 11:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £7,500 inc. premium

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HOBBES (THOMAS)

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, folding letterpress table, leaf A4 repaired at upper margin with loss of a few letters on verso and obscuring ornament on recto, letterpress title working loose, light dampstaining at inner margin of opening leaves, a few early underlining and marginal annotations (cropped), including "vide page 87" on title and pointing hand in margin of pp.87-88, contemporary panelled calf, rebacked, worn [Wing H2246; Macdonald & Hargreaves 42; Pforzheimer 491; PMM 138], folio (264 x 172mm.), Andrew Crooke, 1651

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).

Provenance: William Ross; J.M. Burton; James Gerard (April 1817), ownership inscriptions on front free endapers.

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