"SINCE THE TIME OF PLATO THERE HAD BEEN NO COMPOSITION WHICH… COULD BE COMPARED TO UTOPIA"

MORE, Thomas. Sir Thomas Moore's [sic] Utopia: Containing an Excellent, Learned, Wittie, and Pleasant Discourse of the Best State of a Publick Weale, as it is Found in the Government of the New Ile Called Utopia… Newly Corrected and Purged of All Errors. London: Printed by Bernard Alsop, 1624. Small quarto, modern three-quarter mottled calf, raised bands, morocco spine label, marbled boards; pp. (8), 138, (6). $15,000.

Scarce 1624 fourth edition in English of More's classic of social analysis and philosophy.

"Since the time of Plato there had been no composition given to the world which, for imagination, for philosophical discrimination, for a familiarity with the principles of government, for a knowledge of the springs of human action, for a keen observation of men and manners, and for felicity of expression, could be compared to the Utopia" (Lord Campbell). In this classic work, More "inveighs against the new statesmanship of all-powerful autocracy and the new economics of large enclosures and the destruction of the old common-field agriculture, just as it pleads for religious tolerance and universal education… More had been born and brought up in the law, the most traditional and the most English of all professions: to him, human institutes were not a matter for radical, theoretical reform, but were organic things to which change came slowly. In Utopia More is concerned to show that the old, medieval institutes, if freed from abuse, are the best; not the new theoretic reforms, which he justly feared… Utopia is not, as often imagined, More's ideal state: it exemplifies only the virtues of wisdom, fortitude, temperance and justice. It reflects the moral poverty of the states which More knew, whose Christian rulers should possess also the Christian virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity" (PMM 47). Through its invention of the word 'utopia,' a Greek pun meaning 'no place', "More's Utopia has given its name to a whole genre of literature—Utopian literature—as well as to a way of thinking" (Bronowski & Mazlish, 44). Utopia was first published in Latin in 1516; this edition uses the 1551 translation of Ralph Robinson, the only English translation until 1684. This 1624 edition is additionally the first published in the 17th century and the first to include Bernard Alsop's corrections. Wing M18097.

Age-darkening to title page, as usual, text quite clean. A handsome copy.