CONTAINING THE EDITIO PRINCEPS OF THE LATIN TRANSLATION OF "LEVIATHAN"

HOBBES, THOMAS.

Opera Philosophica, Quae Latinè scripsit, Omnia. Antè quidem per partes, nunc autem, post cognitas omnium Objectiones, conjunctim & accuratiùs Edita. [8 parts]. [Including "leviathan" for the first time in Latin].

Amsterdam, Apud Ioannem Blaeu, 1668.

4to. All eight parts bound in two excellent, contemporary full vellum bindings with yapp edges and neat handwritten titles to spines. Some sections of leaves quite browned, due to the paper quality, but the greater part of the leaves (and all the plates) is crisp and bright. An excellent copy. Woodcut printer's device to title-page, woodcut initials an vignettes, woodcut and engraved text-illustrations (diagrams).

(4) pp., folded engraved portrait of Hobbes (W. Faithorne sculp)folded, 40 pp. + pp. 40,b-m, pp. 41-44 + 2 plates; 146 pp. + 1 blank + 1 plate; (8), 261, (1) pp. + 1 blank + 13 plates; 86 pp. + 1 blank + 8 plates; (16), 174 pp. + 1 blank; 42 pp. + 1 blank + 1 plate; 64 pp + 5 plates; (4), 365, (15 - Indices, incl. errata and "Scripturae Sacrae") pp. + 1 blank. - I.e. fully complete, with all 30 folded, engraved plates (depicting diagrams), all half-titles, and all blanks. Conforming exactly to the Macdonald&Hargreaves collation (our copy without the "Quadratura Circuli", which, according to Macdonald&Hargreaves, is "probably a later insertion", but which "is included in some copies and has a title-page of it's own". Copies without this part, which does not actually belong to the edition, are early and more desireable. Most copies have this later inserted part and thus 31 plates).

The extremely scarce first edition of the first collected edition of Hobbes' works, being the most desirable, the most sought-after and by far the most important. It is to this collected edition that one still refers when quoting Hobbes' works academically. It is furthermore here that Hobbes' seminal main work, Leviathan, appears for the first time in Latin.

It is a great rarity to find all eight parts of this seminal edition, all of which were probably also sold separately from the printer, together and complete. Another edition of the work appeared later the same year, also with Amsterdam, Blaeu imprint, but actually printed in London. That edition, which is the one found in most library-holdings, is much more common and far less desireable, albeit still rare. "Il faut voir si les huit parties indiquées sur un f. après le frontispiece sont réunies dans l'exempl. Il y a une édit. moins complète faite à Londres, sous la même dat; on y lit sur le frontispice, après le nom de Blaeu: "prostant etiam Londini apud Corn. Bee". Le portrait de Hobbes, par Faithorne, a été ajouté à quelques exemplaires." (Brunet III:239-40).

"According to Macdonald&Hargreaves, "[t]here seems to be no uniformity in the order of arrangement of the eight sections of this work. We have seen three (2 vol.) copies bound in the order given on *2r (q.v. in contents) and have arranged the collaction the same way." Our copy is bound in exactly this way.

The hugely important "Opera Philosophica... Omnia", or "Opera Omnia" as it is often referred to, constitutes Hobbes' only successful attempt to have his philosophy published during the period. In 1662 the Licensing Act, a statute requiring that all books had to be approved in advance of publication by the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London, was enforced, after which Hobbes found himself completely barred from having his political, theological, and historical works published. After his hugely successful 1668 Latin "Opera Omnia", printed in Amsterdam, he did not dare publish his works abroad either, however, and the "Opera Omnia" remained the only important philosophical or political work of his to be published during the period. It was a great sales success.

The most important part of the 8 part comprising "Opera Omnia" is the 378 page long final part, which constitutes the editio princeps of the Latin translation of Hobbes' groundbreaking main work, the work from which the "social contract" theory originates, his seminal "Leviathan.

"The Latin "Leviathan" was published towards the end of 1668 within the framework of an edition of Hobbes's collected Latin works, the so-called "Opera Omnia" [i.e. Opera Philosophica... Omnia], published with Johan Blaeu in Amsterdam. "Leviathan, sive De Metria, Forma, & Potestate Civitatis Ecclesisticae et Civilis. Authore Thoma Hobbes, Malmesburiensi" is the eighth and last piece of this collection and the only one published there (in Latin) for the first time; it is therefore the only text to receive (on its last page) a list of errata. The three chapters making up an "Appendix ad Leviatham" (and replacing the "Review and Conclusion" of the English edition) need not detain us here, as they are proper to the Latin version. We only want to note in passing that the few translations from the English "Leviathan" contained in the last chapter of his "Appendix" was worked out independently of the translation and in fact prior to it." (Rogers, Karl Schuhmann, "Thomas Hobbes Leviathan, Vol. 1", p. 241).

Not only is this the first Latin edition of Hobbes' main work, it is furthermore of great importance to the study of the Leviathan and to the understanding of the development of Hobbes' thought. All later editions of the Latin version of "Leviathan" are greatly corrected and none of them appear in the same version as the present one, which provides us with the text in the form that comes closest to what Hobbes himself desired his masterpiece to be.

"[...] Given these results, we may conclude that LL [i.e. the 1668 Latin Leviathan] should be counted an important source for the text of the English "Leviathan". LL is definitely more than a translation that teaches us little or nothing about the text translated. On the contrary, it is based on an independent manuscript copy of "Leviathan", and more specifically on a copy Hobbes had kept with him all the time and had apparently continued to annotate and correct. The variants of LL must therefore be treated with the greatest care wherever there are textual problems in "Leviathan", and not only in those cases in which the text of all English versions is defective. Even where it is a matter of deciding between given variants, LL should have an important, if not decisive voice. Given the fact that LL was worked out integrally by Hobbes at a rather late date, it must also be considered to contain his last decisions regarding the text as a whole. (Rogers, Karl Schuhmann, "Thomas Hobbes Leviathan, Vol. 1", p. 249).

Soon after this first Latin edition, many others appeared:
"So far, when speaking of LL [i.e. Leviathan in the Latin version] and quoting this work, we have always and only been referring to its 1668 edition as published within Hobbes' "Opera Omnia". But there were also other editions after that date. The first of these appeared in 1670 as a separate edition. It has, unsurprisingly the same imprint as the 1668 edition, for it was published as before with Johan Blaeu, who only added to the title page the bibliographical information "Amstelodami, Apud Joannem Blaeu. M.DC.LXX." Another separate edition was published "Londini. Apud Johannem Tomsoni. M.DC.LXXVI." and a third one, also with John Thom(p)son, "Londini Typis Joannis Thomsonii, M.DC.LXXVIII."." (Rogers, Karl Schuhmann, "Thomas Hobbes Leviathan, Vol. 1", p. 250).

Macdonad&Hargreaves: 104; Brunet III:239-40.

Order-nr.: 54565