In Praise of Folly: Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts

Here is Erasmus at his most dazzling: an oration delivered by Folly herself, who steps forward to praise — with radiant irony — her own dominion over human affairs. Written in 1509 and first printed in 1511, In Praise of Folly spares almost no one: philosophers, theologians, lawyers, physicians, monks, merchants, and princes all feel the sting of its laughter, even as the book argues, half-seriously, that happiness may owe more to self-delusion than to wisdom. This edition reproduces the COMPLETE, UNABRIDGED original text, presented with a new introduction that situates the satire amid the Renaissance and on the eve of the Reformation, and with reader's notes illuminating its classical allusions and the celebrated woodcut illustrations — the 'curious cuts' of its historic editions. Witty, humane, and startlingly modern, Folly has charmed and provoked readers for five centuries, and it can still make us laugh at ourselves. Part of The Founding Texts Library.