July | 2015 | CC Special Collections

Tim Fuller, a member of the CC political science department since 1965, donated two rare and valuable books to Special Collections this month, both by Richard Hooker.

Professor Fuller writes: “My primary field of research is in British political thought since the English Reformation. Richard Hooker was considered, and many still consider him, the greatest Anglican theologian. In the turmoil of the 16th century, Hooker defended the natural law tradition (he is sometimes referred to as the English Thomas Aquinas). He wrote against the “religious enthusiasm” of the Puritans, in defense of what became known as the Elizabethan Settlement which established Anglicanism as we have since known it. His great work, Laws of Ecclesiastical Politie, I acquired in two versions: the 1705 folio [below] in an Oxford bookshop in 1989, and the 1617 edition [above] from a Connecticut book dealer about 10 years later. The 1705 is the complete work with a famous biographical introduction by Isaac Walton, the version used today by students of Hooker’s thought. The complete work was not published until the 1660s. The 1617 is roughly the fourth edition (there are several versions of it) which published through only the fifth book (of what was ultimately eight books), but is historically important.”