Preface: The Bookseller To The Reader
The 1682 edition of the book begins with a note from William Crooke in answer to why he was publishing this edition. Hobbes had made Crooke the caretaker of his literary estate in July 1679. Crooke knew of the editions of Behemoth published in Europe and he reasoned that these editions did not show the work in the best possible light due to the many textual errors and omissions. It would therefore be best to publish an authorized edition to correct these errors and show the work as Hobbes wanted it to be read. Crooke had as his source a manuscript copy of the text given to him by Thomas Hobbes around 1670.
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Famous quotes containing the words bookseller and/or reader:
“So it is with books, for the most part: they work no redemption on us. The bookseller might certainly know that his customers are in no respect better for the purchase and consumption of his wares. The volume is dear at a dollar, and after to reading to weariness the lettered backs, we leave the shop with a sigh, and learn, as I did without surprise of a surly bank director, that in bank parlors they estimate all stocks of this kind as rubbish.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“A cow does not know how much milk it has until the milkman starts working on it. Then it looks round in surprise and sees the pail full to the brim. In the same way a writer has no idea how much he has to say till his pen draws it out of him. Thoughts will then appear on the paper that he is amazed to find that he possessed. “How brilliant!” he says to himself. “I had no idea I was so intelligent.” But the reader may not be so im pressed.”
—Gerald Branan (1894–1987)