HOBBES, Thomas.

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Thomae Hobbes Angli Malmesburiensis philosophi vita. A contemporary nonce collection of four of Thomas Hobbes's works, of which one is in first edition, one in the first collected edition, and the other two in second edition. The volume is unrestored in its original binding, and very unusual thus. All four titles are uncommon.Comprising:i) Philosophi Vita.First collected edition. "Includes 'Tho. Hobbes Malmesburiensis vita', a prose autobiography; 'Vitæ Hobbianae auctarium' by Richard Blackburne; and 'Thomae Hobbes Malmesburiensis vita carmine expressa', a verse autobiography. The first and third works were originally published separately in 1679" (ESTC). This edition precedes the two duodecimo editions of the same year. Hobbes's verse and prose autobiographies are a crucial resource for his life and thought. They laboured to establish the royalist credentials of the Leviathan, but also praised the intellectual liberty of the Interregnum and made a brazen attack on the church. Blackburne's biography, derived from John Aubrey's notes, was the first biography of Hobbes, and gives "an unusually positive view of the controversial philosopher's achievements" (ODNB). The collection underwent several editions.-ii) The Art of Rhetoric, with a Discourse of the Laws of England. London: printed for William Crooke, 1681Second edition (first published in 1637), a translation of Aristotle's Rhetoric, also including the first appearance in print of "A Dialogue between a Phylosopher and a St

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