“A SIGNIFICANT INFLUENCE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONALISM”: SCARCE FIRST COLLECTED EDITION OF OCEANA, 1700

HARRINGTON, James. The Oceana of James Harrington, and His Other Works; Som wherof are now first publish’d from his own Manuscripts. The whole Collected, Methodiz’d, and Review’d, With An Exact Account of the Life Prefix’d… London: Printed, and are to be sold by the Booksellers of London and Westminster, 1700. Folio, period-style half polished brown calf, raised bands, burgundy morocco spine label, marbled boards, renewed endpapers.

First collected edition of Harrington’s works, featuring the important Oceana, an impressive folio volume containing his design of a model plan of government to be adopted in place of the monarchy, a work which greatly influenced the development of the American Constitution.

This important collection, the first to include John Toland’s life of Harrington, represents the first publication of several of Harrington’s works. After the death of Charles I, Harrington “set himself the task of designing a model plan of government to be adopted by the English people in place of the monarchy that had been set aside. The result of this undertaking is The Commonwealth of Oceana,” which was seized at Cromwell’s order and was allowed to be printed in 1656 through the intervention of Cromwell’s daughter. Oceana calls for a government based on “the supremacy of reason over passion, which makes the true commonwealth ‘an empire of laws, not of man” (Coker, 499-500). In Harrington’s ideal state a legislative body proposed laws, the people ratified them, and a magistracy enforced them. Oceana introduced classical republicanism into English political thought, and Harrington’s tenets were carried undiluted to the colonies: “It was in America that Harrington’s influence was strongest. The written constitution, the unlimited use of elective principle and the separation of powers are all points which may have been derived directly from the Oceana, while all the minor points seem to have been first formulated by (him). His influence is best seen in the early constitutions of the proprietary colonies, Carolina, New Jersey, Pennsylvania” (Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences). “Other than Utopia, [Oceana] is perhaps the most famous attempt at envisioning a model commonwealth” (Pforzheimer 449). Edited by John Toland. With engraved allegorical frontispiece, engraved portrait of Harrington, and folding plate depicting “The Manner and Use of the Ballot.” Title page printed in red and black. A Covenanted People 39. Goldsmith 3735. Wing H816. Kress 2225. See Sowerby 2335. Tiny notation to rear blank.

Text and plates fresh and clean with only light scattered foxing, small closed tear to upper margin of folding plate just touching caption but not affecting text. A scarce near-fine copy of this highly influential work, handsomely bound.