Information
Strassburg, Matthias Schurer, August 1511. In 4th. 202 x 140 mm. Roman characters, some Greek, initial spaces with leading letter, present the rare H4, H5 sheet and above all the very rare H6 white sheet, copy with wide margins, delicate restorations on the title paper, remounted, small marginal repairs on f. A8, no losses. Soft parchment binding from the 16th century with title on the spine.
Specialist Notes
THE PRAISE OF MADNESS, the best-known of Erasmus' works: a biting satire that criticizes all human professions, from monks and theologians to grammarians, poets and rhetoricians like him. Erasmus' inversions and double meanings begin with the title, playing with the name of his friend and landlord Thomas More, in whose London house he wrote the book, and continue by having the story told by a personified Folly, so that Folly you ridicule the madness. Erasmus followed the classical models of ironic praise of Isocrates, Lucian, and Seneca, in his composition, and infused them with Christian Platonism. Large copy, which retains many leaves still intact.
First dated edition, after the undated Parisian print by Gilles de Gourmont of only two months earlier, of which only a few copies survive, all in institutional libraries. The present edition, almost as rare, is not a simple reprint of the Paris edition, but contains additional material, including an address and a laudatory letter to Erasmus from his humanist colleague Jakob Wimpfeling. The first English translation was published only in 1549, although Czech, French and German editions existed before then. An excellent example of a classic work of paradoxical satire, in which madness is personified and mirrors humanity. An extremely significant work both in itself and for its influence on the Protestant Reformation in general. Sir Thomas More's magnum opus, Utopia, was written at least in part as a response to the Moriae Encomium: "The Praise of Folly was written when Erasmus was staying at Thomas More's house in the winter of 1509. The title is a delicate play on words on the name of its host: the subject is a brilliant and biting satire on the madness found in all areas of life. The book was born from the decision that Erasmus had made when he left Rome to come to England: no form of preference could be obtained by sacrificing his freedom to read, think and write what he pleased. The work was secretly printed in Paris and, as in other cases, its immediate success safeguarded it from consequences of his audacity Whenever tyranny or absolute power threatened, The Praise of Folly was reread and reprinted. It is a sign of what was in the air that Milton found it in all hands at Cambridge in 1628. His intrinsic skepticism led to Erasmus being defined as the father of 18th century rationalism, but his rationalist attitude is that of perfect common sense, which abhorred tyranny and fanaticism". (PMM 43) Despite the risky nature of the work and its explicit and implicit attacks on the established religion and authority figures of the time, its rapid popularity meant that the author and the work were left unscathed by Church and State , at least until the death of Erasmus in 1536, after which his reputation, hitherto pristine, was reduced. Since 1559 all his works had been prohibited and included in the insidious Index Auctorum et Librorum Prohibitorum.
Bezzel 1298; see PMM 43; Vander Haeghen 122.
First dated edition, after the undated Parisian print by Gilles de Gourmont of only two months earlier, of which only a few copies survive, all in institutional libraries. The present edition, almost as rare, is not a simple reprint of the Paris edition, but contains additional material, including an address and a laudatory letter to Erasmus from his humanist colleague Jakob Wimpfeling. The first English translation was published only in 1549, although Czech, French and German editions existed before then. An excellent example of a classic work of paradoxical satire, in which madness is personified and mirrors humanity. An extremely significant work both in itself and for its influence on the Protestant Reformation in general. Sir Thomas More's magnum opus, Utopia, was written at least in part as a response to the Moriae Encomium: "The Praise of Folly was written when Erasmus was staying at Thomas More's house in the winter of 1509. The title is a delicate play on words on the name of its host: the subject is a brilliant and biting satire on the madness found in all areas of life. The book was born from the decision that Erasmus had made when he left Rome to come to England: no form of preference could be obtained by sacrificing his freedom to read, think and write what he pleased. The work was secretly printed in Paris and, as in other cases, its immediate success safeguarded it from consequences of his audacity Whenever tyranny or absolute power threatened, The Praise of Folly was reread and reprinted. It is a sign of what was in the air that Milton found it in all hands at Cambridge in 1628. His intrinsic skepticism led to Erasmus being defined as the father of 18th century rationalism, but his rationalist attitude is that of perfect common sense, which abhorred tyranny and fanaticism". (PMM 43) Despite the risky nature of the work and its explicit and implicit attacks on the established religion and authority figures of the time, its rapid popularity meant that the author and the work were left unscathed by Church and State , at least until the death of Erasmus in 1536, after which his reputation, hitherto pristine, was reduced. Since 1559 all his works had been prohibited and included in the insidious Index Auctorum et Librorum Prohibitorum.
Bezzel 1298; see PMM 43; Vander Haeghen 122.
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