Hobbes (Thomas)

Leviathan, or The Matter, Forme & Power of a Common-Wealth, f

first edition, first issue, printed title with 'head' ornament, additional engraved pictorial title, contemporary signature ‘Ed.Jackson’ and price of ‘8-6’ to upper right corner, folding letterpress table with light stain to upper edge, occasional light staining to mostly fore-edges throughout in some case becoming slightly heavier, contemporary calf, re-backed, new end-papers, [Pforzheimer 491; PMM 138; Wing H2246], folio, for Andrew Crooke, 1651.

Hobbes's Leviathan was written in Paris where he had fled at the onset of the English Civil War. He became the tutor to the Prince of Wales, subsequently Charles II. 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, he 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. This work provoked protests from the right and left. It remains today one of the most original political treatises of all time.