Antiquarian

and of the councels and artifices by which they were carried on, from the year 1640. to the year 1660...printed from the author's true copy
London, for W. Crooke, 1682.

First authorised, separate edition. 8vo. Contemporary blind-tooled calf, rebacked in modern calf with morocco title label lettered in gilt.

Thomas Hobbes' (here spelt 'Hobbs') Behemoth is a dialogue on the causes and course of the English Civil Wars, composed in 1668 but long suppressed by Charles II on account of its forthright political analysis. It circulated in unauthorised continental editions in the 1670s, and in an illicit London issue of 1679/81, before appearing in its first authorised form in 1682, when the London publisher William Crooke printed it, including it at the head of his Tracts of Mr. Thomas Hobbs of Malmsbury. The edition was presented as taken directly from Hobbes' corrected manuscript in an effort to supersede the corrupt earlier printings.In substance, Behemoth complements and extends the arguments of Leviathan. Where Leviathan (1651) set out Hobbes' abstract political philosophy - the need for an undivided sovereign power to prevent a "war of all against all" - Behemoth provides the concrete case study: a scathing dissection of the ideological, religious, and social divisions that, in Hobbes' view, destroyed the unity of the commonwealth and plunged England into rebellion. It is both history and cautionary tale, a practical demonstration of what occurs when the principles of Leviathan are ignored. For this reason, Behemoth has long been regarded as the essential historical companion to Hobbes' masterpiece, showing the theoretical edifice of sovereignty tested against the lived experience of revolution.