HOBBES, Thomas (1588-1679). Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill. London: Andrew Crooke, 1651.

HOBBES, Thomas (1588-1679). Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill. London: Andrew Crooke, 1651.

First edition, first issue of the most important 17th-century English work of political philosophy. Hobbes regarded the state ‘as a great artificial monster made up of individual men’ (PMM), who must submit to it voluntarily for the good of the greater commonwealth, in order to lift humankind out of anarchy. True to Hobbes's prediction, the originality and directness of his work exacerbated the divisions in a nation already torn during the English Civil War, but it also brought many out of the 'darkness of ignorance'. Leviathan directly influenced theorists from Spinoza to Bentham. Macdonald & Hargreaves 42; Norman 1082; PMM 138; Wing H-2246.

Folio (269 x 180mm). Engraved frontispiece, folding letterpress table (occasional light spotting, faint dampstain at gutter of last few quires). Contemporary sprinkled calf, sides panelled in gilt, edges sprinkled red (rebacked, retaining part of original backstrip, extremities rubbed). Provenance: a contemporary reader (erased title inscription, neat marginalia) -- W.R. Sorley (probably the Scottish philosopher, William Ritchie Sorley, 1855-1935; flyleaf inscription).

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