“THE FATHER OF MODERN DEMOCRACY”: 1598 FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH OF ARISTOTLE’S ENORMOUSLY INFLUENTIAL POLITICS

ARISTOTLE. Aristotles Politiques, or Discourses of Government. Translated out of Greeke into French… by Loys LeRoy, called Regivs. Translated out of French into English. London: Printed by Adam Islip, 1598. Small folio, modern three-quarter crushed brown morocco, raised bands, marbled boards.

First edition in English of one of the world’s most important and influential political texts, “the most valuable work on that branch of philosophy that has descended to us from antiquity,” handsomely bound in rich crushed morocco by Bayntun.

Aristotle’s Politics (written circa 350 B.C.) “is the most valuable work on that branch of philosophy that has descended to us from antiquity” (McCulloch, 356). It marks “a genuine attempt at political science. Aristotle shows the ways in which oligarchies fall, and the variety of situations that may follow. He goes through the likely causes of revolution. He is conscious of classes and their interests” (Levi, 403). The work embodies “theories of perennial value, and refutations of fallacies which are always re-emerging” (Hazlitt, 36). Aristotle’s history of mature Athenian democracy and the development of that city-state’s constitution greatly influenced modern political philosophy. Politics had a particularly profound effect on the formation of the United States government: Jefferson had a copy of LeRoy’s French translation in his library (Sowerby 2347), and many of the basic tenets of the U.S. Constitution derive directly from Aristotle, making him in some sense “the father of modern democracy” (PMM 94). Title page with woodcut-engraved device, woocut-engraved initials, head- and tailpieces. Four-page table of contents and one-page errata at rear. Bound without initial or final blanks. Pages 70 and 71 misnumbered 80 and 81, 178 misnumbered 173, 284 misnumbered 84, 378 misnumbered 376. STC 760. Pforzheimer 10. Brueggemann, 184-85. CBEL I:800. Cox I:59. Harris, 14, Lowndes, 68. Palmer, 12. Smith, 31. See PMM 38, 94.

Text generally fresh and clean, minor expert archival repair to several leaves minimally affecting text, tiny holes to three leaves affecting only a few letters. An most desirable copy of a landmark text, handsomely bound.