LEVIATHAN, OR THE MATTER, FORME, AND POWER OF A COMMONWEALTH ECCLESIAS by HOBBES, Thomas - 1651

1651. HOBBES, Thomas. LEVIATHAN, OR THE MATTER, FORME, & POWER OF A COMMON-WEALTH ECCLESIASTICALL AND CIVILL. London: Andrew Crooke, 1651. First edition, first issue (with typographical "head" ornament on title-page: winged head with scrolls, flowers, and tassels). Engraved title-page with an elaborate allegorical illustration. Folio in fours: [-]1,A-Ddd4; 201 leaves plus a folding table. 10 15/16 x 7 ? inches. Pagination: [1] f., [6], 1-248,247-256,261-396. Folding table inserted between pp. 40-41. No printer's corrections of errata, although three of the first four are neatly corrected by hand. Contemporary ink notes in margins of pages 39 and 197. Handsomely rebound in full calf. Hobbes, one of the most original and controversial political thinkers of his time, has stimulated philosophers from Spinoza to John Stuart Mill. In this work, his most famous, and one of the great books of western political philosophy, he decribes the State as a great artificial monster made up of individual men and the individual's duty to the State. (PMM 138; Kress 831; Pforzheimer 491.).