"PRODUCED A FERMENTATION OF ENGLISH THOUGHT UNSURPASSED UNTIL THE ADVENT OF DARWINISM" (PMM): FIRST COLLECTED EDITION OF HOBBES' WORKS, IN ENGLISH, 1750

HOBBES, Thomas. The Moral and Political Works of Thomas Hobbes… Never Before Collected Together, To Which Is Prefixed, The Author's Life. London: Printed in the Year 1750. Folio (9-1/2 by 14 inches), contemporary full brown speckled calf gilt rebacked with original spine laid down, original red morocco spine label, raised bands. $9200.

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, in contemporary calf binding.

The Works of Thomas Hobbes spans "one of the most momentous periods of English history, and he was one of its most conspicuous figure," 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 fiercer 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 first to offer 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' influence 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.

Text about fine, handsome contemporary calf with expert restoration.