[Utopia] De optimo reip. statu, deque nova insula Utopia, libellus vere aureus

Basel: Apud Joannem Frobenium, 1518. Utopia] De optimo reip. statu, deque nova insula Utopia, libellus vere aureus...Epigrammata darissimi disertissimicus viri Thomae Mori, pleraque è Græcis versa. Epigrammata. Des. Erasmi Roterodami.. [Basel: Apud Joannem Frobenium, November-December 1518].

Fourth edition of Thomas More's Utopia, the second edition corrected by More, and the second edition of More's Epigrammata. Three parts in one small quarto volume (8 1/8 x 5 7/8 inches; 149 x 205 mm.). 163, [1, unnumbered page], 164, [2, unnumbered pages], [1, colophon, dated "Novembri MDXVIII"], [1, title-page for "Epigram"], 166-355, [1, colophon, dated "Decembri MDXVIII"] pp. Roman and Greek types. Twenty-six lines. Woodcut Utopian alphabet on b3 recto (designed by Petrus Aegidius and later used by Geoffroy Tory in the Champfleury). Title within a fine woodcut architectural border by Hans Holbein on title (repeated on c1), full-page woodcut map of Utopia on b2 verso by Ambrosius Holbein, half-page woodcut head-piece depicting John Clement, Raphael Hythlodaye, Thomas More, and Pieter Gillis by Ambrosius Holbein opening text on d1 recto, woodcut title border to More's epigrams by Urs Graf, woodcut title border to Erasmus's epigrams by Hans Holbein, one of three woodcut printer's devices at the end of each part, woodcut historiated initials by Urs Graf and Ambrosius and Hans Holbein.

Full eighteenth century English tree calf. Front cover repaired at hinge. Boards tooled in gilt. Gilt dentelles. Marbled endpapers. All edges dyed yellow. Spine stamped and lettered in gilt. Some scattered minor marginal stains. Small marginal paper repair to leaf S, not affecting text. A few early, neat ink annotations in margin. Three previous owner's bookplates on front endpapers. Overall a very good copy. Housed in a quarter morocco clamshell.

Provenance- According to Sotheby's who sold this present copy at the George Abrams sale: sold Sotheby's London 17 November 1989, lot 194. "Possibly Anthony Rous (d. 1620), friend of Sir Francis Drake and one of his original executors), with contemporary inscription on title "Possessor Antho. Rous 2d"; Lord Dacre, with his bookplate and inscribed by him "This Book formerly Mr Capels given me by the Revd. Mr. Collins of Ledbury his Executor D."; Albert Ehrman, Broxbourne Library, with bookplate (sold Sothbey's London 14 December 1977, lot 63)--George Abrams, with bookplate (sale in our rooms, I, 14 November 1977, lot 63).")

"Utopia was published in the great year of Erasmian reform, when the new enlightenment seemed about to carry all before it...It was written...as a tract for the times, to rub in the lesson of Erasmus; it inveighs against the new statesmanship of all-powerful autocracy and the new economics of large enclosures and the destruction of the old common-field agriculture, just as it pleads for religious tolerance and universal education. In this it is a work of reaction rather than progress: indeed, just as Rasselas might almost be a critique of Candide, so Utopia might seem an advocacy of the old virtues against the new totalitarianism of Il Principe...In Utopia More is concerned to show that the old, medieval institutes, if freed from abuse, are the best, not the new theoretic reforms, which he justly feared...Utopia is not, as often imagined, More's ideal state: it exemplifies only the virtues of wisdom, fortitude, temperance and justice. It reflects the moral poverty of the states which More knew, whose Christian rulers should possess also the Christian virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity" (Printing and the Mind of Man).

More began Utopia during a diplomatic mission to Antwerp in 1515, where he stayed with the humanist Pieter Gilles, a close friend of Erasmus. He completed his satire in England late the following year and asked Erasmus and Gilles to see it through the press. The first edition of Utopia was printed by Thierry Martin at Louvain in 1516. The second edition of Utopia was printed at Paris in 1517, but it is simply a reprint of Thierry Martin's edition. More revised his Utopia for the 1518 third edition, which is the first edition to include the Epigrammata of More and Erasmus. The fourth edition is a page-for-page reprint of Froben's edition published in March of the same year, which established the text for all subsequent editions. Erasmus was responsible for arranging publication of the two Basel editions by "his printer, Johann Froben, for which More provided a revised text. The fourth edition was published in More's lifetime, and the small corrections may represent his ongoing involvement.

Adams M1757. Gibson, More, 4. Fairfax Murray, German, 304. Printing and the Mind of Man 47 (citing the 1516 first edition).

HBS 66906.

$45,000.