B A U M A N R A R E B O O K S S U M M E R 2 0 2 3 "PRODUCED A FERMENTATION OF ENGLISH THOUGHT UNSURPASSED UNTIL THE ADVENT OF DARWINISM" (PMM): FIRST COLLECTED EDITION OF HOBBES' WORKS, IN ENGLISH, 1750 25. HOBBES, Thomas. The Moral and Political Works of Thomas Hobbes… Never Before Collected Together, To Which Is Pre!xed, The Author's Life. London: Printed in the Year 1750. Folio (10 by 14 inches), contemporary full brown calf gilt, raised bands, red morocco spine label. $8800 First collected edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes, "the most original political philosopher of his time" (PMM), featuring such seminal writings as Leviathan, De Corpore, Human Nature, Behemoth and others, with engraved frontispiece portrait and re-engraved Leviathan title page. A handsome folio in contemporary calf-gilt. The Works of Thomas Hobbes spans "one of the most momentous periods of English history, and he was one of its most conspicuous !gure," celebrated for writings such Human Nature (1650) well before he "embarked on his greatest work Leviathan (1651)" (PMM 138). It was there that Hobbes "produced a fermentation in English thought not surpassed until the advent of Darwinism… It still remains a model of vigorous exposition, unsurpassed in the language" (Pforzheimer 491). "Few books have caused more or !ercer controversy" (Rosenbach 36:345). Much of what Hobbes argues in Leviathan can be traced to his De Corpore, also herein, a work published after Leviathan, yet the !rst to o#er his view "of a trilogy on body, man and citizen, in which everything in the world of nature and man was to be included in a conceptual scheme" (Edwards IV, 31). Hobbes' in"uence fully extended to "the framers of the [American] Constitution… When John Adams wrote that 'he who would found a state, and make proper laws for the government of it, must presume that all men are bad by nature,' he was expressing an idea that was derived at once from Hobbes" (Lutz & Warden, 38). To many Hobbes remains "the most original political philosopher of his time" (PMM 138). First collected edition, preceded only by a partial collection printed in Amsterdam in 1668. With engraved full-page portrait of Hobbes, re-engraved Leviathan frontispiece dated 1651. Containing Leviathan, De Corpore, Human Nature, Behemoth (1679) and other key writings. Macdonald & Hargreaves 107. See Lowndes, 1077. Armorial bookplate. Interior !ne, handsome contemporary calf binding with only minor restoration. 25
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