The Common-Wealth of Oceana Commonwealth of Oceana

London: J. Streater for Liverwell Chapman. Good with no dust jacket. 1656. First Edition. Hardcover. [6], 239, [1], 255-286, 189-210 pp. A small folio. Title in red and black has been crudely repaired and remounted. Modern brown buckram rebinding with gold spine title, new end papers, small bookplate of Italian writer Aldo Maffey. Paper is browned with some general wear and chipping at the edges but textually complete and legible with a few old ink corrections/marginalia. Last leaf has old repairs and remounting affecting the top line of text on 210. Lacking 3 preliminary leaves after the title (dedication, epistle and errors) and the final unnumbered leaf (the colophon) , all supplied loose in facsimile. ESTC calls this a variant of the "printed for D. Pakeman" imprint and calls for a frontis plate but no one seems to have it, including the Princeton and Huntington copies. ESTC R18610. Harrington's magnum opus, Oceana is an exposition on an ideal constitution, designed to allow for the existence of a utopian republic. Oceana was read contemporaneously as a metaphor for interregnum England, with its beneficent lawgiver Olphaus Megaletor representing Cromwell. The details of this ideal governing document are set out, from the rights of the state to the salaries of low officials. Its strategies were not implemented at the time. The Commonwealth of Oceana was published in two first editions, the "Pakeman" and the "Chapman" by the London printer John Streater, between September and November 1656. Their contents are nearly identical. The Chapman edition was listed in the Stationers' Register of 19 Sep, and was first advertised during the week of 6 Nov in the serial Mercurius Politicus, a "quasi-official" organ of the Commonwealth. The first edition of the book was seized while at the printer. Cromwell's daughter intervened and the book was republished, this time with a dedication to Cromwell. A masterpiece of political theory, still referenced today. A worn but usable and textually complete copy of this groundbreaking work, priced low to reflect condition. ; Folio 13" - 23" tall .