Hobbes (Thomas) Leviathan, or The matter, forme, & power of a common-wealth ecclesiasticall and …

Hobbes (Thomas) Leviathan, or The matter, forme, & power of a common-wealth ecclesiasticall and civill, first edition, first issue (with 'head' ornament to letterpress title), engraved additional pictorial title by Abraham Bosse, folding letterpress table, L2&3 from another copy (remargined and neatly bound in), additional title trimmed to border and neatly remargined, B4 small hole in lower margin, affecting 1 letter of catchword verso, 2B2 repair to upper blank corner, 2B3&4 inner gutters strengthened, 2Y3-3A4 minor mostly marginal worm trace, some spotting or foxing and staining, occasional soiling, lightly browned, later dark red calf-backed boards, spine in compartments and with later to style black leather label and black rules, repaired, boards stained, rubbed, [Macdonald & Hargreaves 42; Pforzheimer 491; PMM 138; Wing H2246], folio, Printed [by Thomas Warren and Richard Cotes] for Andrew Crooke, at the Green Dragon in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1651. ⁂ Sir Anthony Kenny's copy of Hobbes' masterpiece of political philosophy. It was written while he was resident in Paris, and espouses the idea of a 'social contract' freely entered into between an absolute ruler and their subjects. The Roman Catholic Church placed the work on the Index of Prohibited Books for its idea that the sovereign should also act as head of the state's religion. Provenance: Sir Anthony Kenny (b.1931), British philosopher, who wrote on Hobbes in his A New History of Western Philosophy, 2010 (bookplate to front pastedown).