HOBBES, Thomas (1588-1679)

Lot 97
09.07.2025 10:30UTC +01:00
Classic
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
Buyer Premiumsee on Website%
ID 1450512
Lot 97 | HOBBES, Thomas (1588-1679)
Estimate value
£ 10 000 – 15 000
HOBBES, Thomas (1588-1679)
Leviathan; or The Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill. London: Andrew Crooke, 1651.
A crisp first edition of the most important 17th-century English work of political philosophy: the first issue, with head ornament on title-page. Hobbes's gloomy theory of the human condition caused a storm in England and brought him much controversy. Indeed, it ‘produced a fermentation in English thought not surpassed until the advent of Darwinism’ (Pforzheimer). Such was its in-demand notoriety that when Pepys wished to buy a copy, he had to buy it second-hand and pay almost four times the original published price. The influence of Leviathan was tremendous, first on Spinoza, then on Bentham and on other political thinkers into the modern era, while its significance has been no less valid for subsequent economic theory including that of Adam Smith. MacDonald and Hargreaves 42; Pforzheimer 491; PMM 138.

Folio (288 x 179mm). Engraved additional title page, folding plate (creasing to lower corner of several early leaves, minor stains in a few leaves, some faint spots and trivial short splits to folding table, dampstain to upper margin of last several quires). Contemporary calf, sides ruled in blind, edges and spine gilt, speckled edges (rebacked, with most of original spine laid down). Provenance: inscription erased from front endpaper - Christie’s London, 25 June 1997, lot 180 – Edward R. Leahy (his sale, Christie’s New York, 6 October 2022, lot 32).
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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