HARRINGTON, James.

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The Common-Wealth of Oceana. First edition of this masterpiece of political theory, among the most renowned treatises on commonwealths and a potent influence on Jefferson's democratic agrarianism. Bringing together strands of civic humanism and Machiavellian republicanism, Harrington's commonwealth includes such features as a written constitution, bicameral legislature, rotational offices, and secret ballots. This carefully drawn system of checks and balances was consciously devised as a counter to Hobbesian absolutism. Despite his fervent republicanism, Harrington had been a close confidant of Charles I, and the British Commonwealth was hesitant to sanction Oceana's publication. Typeset by three different printers to avoid seizure, the work was published with two variant title pages, one having the imprint "printed by J. Streater for Livewell Chapman", the other "printed for D. Pakeman".David Hume later praised the work as "the only valuable model of a commonwealth that has yet been offered to the public". Jefferson's democratic agrarianism drew heavily on Harrington, as did the antitrust policies of Roosevelt and Wilson.This copy comes from the collection of the bookseller and bibliographer Graham Pollard (1903-1976), with his bookplate on the front free endpaper. Pollard wrote many bibliographical reference works and helped to expose Thomas J. Wise's prolific forgeries.

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