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The true first edition (with the winged head ornament on the title page) of Hobbes's masterpiece, a foundational work of political theory. The thesis of Leviathan is exemplified by its iconic frontispiece – "the State, it seemed to Hobbes, might be regarded as a great artificial monster made up of individual men... the individual (except to save his own life) should always submit to the State, because any government is better than the anarchy of the natural state" (PMM). Life in this anarchical state, Hobbes famously asserted, would be "solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short" (p. 62). These concerns were influenced by the chaos of the English Civil War. Hobbes, then living at the exiled royal court in Paris, chose to publish Leviathan in England in the vernacular (a Latin edition would follow in 1668). In response to the prospect of anarchy and chaos, Leviathan outlines one of the earliest detailed articulations of the social contract theory, whereby individuals willingly transfer their right of self-government to the state in exchange for the protection and stability that such an institution could provide. In line with this, Hobbes argued that any restrictions or attempts at power sharing will fracture the state and risk the disintegration of social order, a prospect more fearful to him than any regimen of an absolute leader. These views elicited a storm of controversy among proponents of individual liberties, religious authorities, and, for his the assertion that subjects had the right to reject any leader who could not reliably protect them, the Stuart court itself. Through this conflict, Leviathan has been the catalyst of much productive thought in succeeding centuries: "the fundamental nature of his speculation has stimulated philosophers from Spinoza to the school of Bentham, who reinstated him in his position as the most original political philosopher of his time" (PMM). There are three editions of Leviathan with imprints dated 1651. This, with a winged head ornament on the title page, is indisputably the first edition. The date on the other two editions is fictitious: both were printed in Amsterdam much later, the edition with a bear ornament around 1670 and that with a triangular type ornament around 1695-1702. READ MORE Folio (280 x 177 mm). Contemporary speckled calf, expertly rebacked preserving original spine, covers with triple fillet border in blind, new endpapers preserving earlier rear free endpaper. Ornament of winged head on title page, engraved frontispiece and folding printed table. Name "Shirley" written in a neat early hand to pp. 48 and 193; other minor early annotation to pp. 33 and 293; pencilled manicule of uncertain date to p. 166. A few minor marks and abrasions to covers; some sporadic browning and foxing, yet generally clean internally. The frontispiece is a little closely trimmed at head but without any loss, and is here in a good bold impression, without the fading that is sometimes seen; the folding table is without tears or stains. Overall a very desirable copy. ESTC R17253; Macdonald & Hargreaves 42; Printing and the Mind of Man 138; Wing H2246.

Leviathan is a book written by Thomas Hobbes which concerns the structure of society and legitimate government, and is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential examples of social contract theory.