Early edition in English. The first edition of John Wilson's English translation of this important work of humanist rhetoric, which satirised the corruption and religious hypocrisy of Europe's elite and the established church.

The Praise of Folly was written whilst Erasmus was staying at the house of his friend Thomas More in the winter of 1509 to 1510, its title — Moriae Encomium — being a deliberate play on the name of his host. First printed in secret in Paris in 1511, the work was not published in England until the translation completed by Sir Thomas Chaloner appeared in 1549. More responded with his own satire, Utopia, published to popular acclaim in 1516.

This edition, in a new English translation by the Royalist playwright John Wilson, was published during a period of renewed interest in classical literature and philosophy following the Restoration of Charles II as King in 1660. The licenser, Roger L'Estrange, who had been appointed Surveyor of the Press in 1663, brought out new translations of Seneca's Morals and Cicero's De Officiis, whilst Gilbert Burnet, the Bishop of Salisbury, produced a revised English language edition of Utopia to popular acclaim in 1684.

'His inherent scepticism has led people to call Erasmus the father of eighteenth-century rationalism, but his rationalist attitude is that of perfect common sense, to which tyranny and fanaticism were alike abhorrent' (PMM 43).

From the library of Dr Howard and Linda Knohl of Fox Pointe Manor, a distinguished collector of early English books.

First Wilson edition; small 8vo (14.5 x 9.5 cm); woodcut initials and headpieces, bookplate to rear pastedown, text a little toned, slight dampstaining to lower fore-edge margin, offsetting to endpaper margins; contemporary blind-ruled calf, spine restored, edges sprinkled red, minor wear, very good; [8], 160pp.

ESTC R15059; cf PMM 43.