Mare Clausum Seu de Dominio Maris Libri Duo. Primo, Mare, ex Jure...
The First Major English Text on International Law in a Remarkable Early Modern Binding with Political and Dramatic Structural Waste Selden, John [1584-1654]. Mare Clausum seu de Domino Maris Libri Duo... London: Excudebat Will. Stanesbeius, pro Richard Meighen, 1635. Folio. (11-1/4" x 7-1/2"; 28.6 x 19). [xxvi], 304, [12], [1, errata] pp. Complete with two maps (one copperplate, one woodcut) and six woodcut illustrations in the text. Contemporary full dark brown calf, boards ruled in blind, spine with raised bands, sympathetic repair to the spine headcap. Light rubbing to boards and moderate rubbing to extremities; corners gently bumped. Inner hinges tender but secure. Moderate internal toning, a few tiny, isolated wormholes to the blank margins of the text block, and faint dampstaining to the fore-edges of a few leaves. A handsome, wide-margined, and entirely complete folio copy of a foundational text. $4,500. * First edition of Selden's monumental defense of British maritime sovereignty, written as a direct, state-backed refutation of Hugo Grotius's Mare Liberum (1609). Commissioned under James I and updated for Charles I, Mare Clausum ("The Closed Sea") serves as the fundamental legal justification for British dominion over the surrounding seas. Where Grotius relied on broad philosophical deductions, Selden anchored his defense of private maritime ownership in exhaustive historical precedent, positive law, ancient statutes, and multilingual medieval codes. The work became the cornerstone of 17th-century English maritime policy and established Selden as a preeminent legal mind of early modern Europe. This copy features a compelling pair of structural printed fragments used as binder's waste, providing a material case study of a mid-1630s London workshop recycling international statecraft and domestic playhouse proofs simultaneously: Front Pastedown: A substantial folio sheet from a contemporary Latin edition of Count Jerzy Ossolinski's Oratio, delivered before King James I on March 11, 1621. The visible text contains a fiery defense of Christendom against the Ottoman Empire under Sultan Suleiman ("Solymannus"), warning that the Turks would flood across Poland into Germany and use the Baltic Sea ("Balthicum... sinum") to threaten the Atlantic. Rear Pastedown: An unfolded proof sheet or printer's wast.
Price: $4,500.00
Book number 87200