There are four books that have been advertised in sales catalogues as possessing the inscription ‘Tho. Hobbes’ and having once been owned by Thomas Hobbes. But how confident can we be that they belonged to the famous philosopher? This research note gathers evidence for assessing whether or not this quartet of books were once in the possession of Hobbes of Malmesbury, with particular attention given to a previously undiscussed edition of Josuah Sylvester’s Devine Weekes and Workes (1611) sold to the University of Illinois in 1951 as Hobbes’s copy. The evidence is insufficient to connect any of the four books to Hobbes securely, and in at least one case an Oxford undergraduate of the same name emerges as a stronger candidate. This conclusion confirms that the catalogues at Chatsworth are our principal source for knowing which books Hobbes might have read.

中文翻译：

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寿书。霍布斯

有四本书在销售目录中标有“Tho”字样。霍布斯，曾为托马斯霍布斯所有。但是我们有多大把握认为它们属于这位著名哲学家呢？这份研究报告收集了评估这四本书是否曾经为马姆斯伯里的霍布斯所有的证据，特别关注了之前未讨论过的约书亚·西尔维斯特 (Josuah Sylvester) 的 Devine Weekes and Workes (1611) 在1951 年作为霍布斯的副本。证据不足以将四本书中的任何一本与霍布斯安全地联系起来，至少在一个案例中，一位牛津大学的同名本科生成为了更强大的候选人。