HOBBES, Thomas. - Lot 1081

Lot n° 1081
Go to lot
Estimation :
6000 - 8000 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 33 489EUR
HOBBES, Thomas. - Lot 1081
HOBBES, Thomas. Leviathan, Or the Matter, Forme, & Power of a Common-Wealth ecclesiastical and civill. London, printed for Andrew Crooke, 1651. In-folio (283 x 183 mm) of an engraved frontispiece, 3 ff.n.ch., 396 pp., 1 folding typographical table between pp. 40/41; brown calf, double cold-filleted frame, spine with dumb nerves, red edges (contemporary English binding). Original edition. First edition copy of the most important work of seventeenth-century English political philosophy. Divided into four parts, it is a text of "striking radicality: starting from a pessimistic anthropology (conception of man), making man an enemy to other men, it concludes that there is a need for a strong state, Leviathan, which will be responsible for ensuring the security of its members in exchange for their obedience, thus forming a social and political pact. It inaugurates the great philosophical tradition of contractualism" (La-philosophie.com). "Though Hobbes's ideas have never appealed to proponents of the individual rights of men... the fundamental nature of his speculation has stimulated philosophers from Spinoza to the school of Bentham, who reinstated him in his position as the most original political philosopher of his time" (PMM). Very fine copy, despite a small wormhole and a slight wetness at the beginning, with large margins, well preserved in its first binding with skillfully restored head covers. PMM, 138; Wing, H-2246; Norman, 1082; Macdonald & Hargreaves, 42.
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue