A very nicely preserved second edition [first thus] of Hobbes' significant translations of Homer. His version of the Odyssey was first published in 1675 and then issued here with Iliad as well. Significantly, he completed his work on Homer toward the end of his life, when censorship meant he no longer had other means of expressing his views in print.
It is believed that his Homer continued with the arguments of his famed Leviathan, one of the most important works of political philosophy in the modern era. Originally written while fleeing from the unrest in England as a reaction to the English Civil war, Hobbes criticizes both parliament and the divine right of kings. Hobbes portrays the government as a giant monster made up of individual men and allows criticism of the "monster" based on its keeping or not keeping of the "social contract" with the people. This idea of the resposibility of the monarchy was picked up by Thomas Paine and John Locke, and fairly naturally leading to the concept of rule not by an individual, but "of the people, by the people, and for the people." We can see Hobbes at work here in his translations of Homer, for example, depicting the non-royal, Agamemnon, as a a far more worthy ruler in translation than in Homer's original work, i.e. basing a person's right to rule on their fulfillment of the social contract rather than divine or familial right.
A nearly identical example sold at auction in 2020 for $3,750.00 with commissions.
Homer; Thomas Hobbes [Preface and Trans.]. The Iliads and Odysses of Homer. Translated Out of the Greek into English by Tho: Hobbes of Malmsbury. With a large Preface concerning the Vertues of an Heroick Poem; Written by the Translator. The Second Edition. London. Printed for Will. Crook, at the Green Dragon without Temple-Barre. 1677. 12 + 384 + 301pp.
A generally tidy example of the rare second edition, containing the oft-lacking engraved title at the frontis before the general title. A second engraved title before The Odyssey is mentioned in bibliographical sources, but we trance not a single example in which it is included.
