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[BRANT, Sebastian.]
The Ship of Fools. Translated by Alexander Barclay. Edinburgh: William Patterson. London: Henry Sotheran & Co. . 1874.
2 volumes, 4to, pp. cxx, 306, frontispiece portrait and 1 plate at p. xcii; viii, 351, (1). Half-titles, woodcut vignette on the title-pages, numerous woodcuts reproduced in the text. Contemporary mottled calf by Riviere & Son, spines richly gilt in compartments with red and green morocco labels, triple gilt fillet and floriated border on sides, inner gilt dentelles, yellow edges, marbled endpapers. A little foxing on the endpapers, but a very attractive copy. Armorial bookplates of Edward George Troyte-Bullock, and small paper labels with the note “Purchased at N. Coker sale Sept. 28th/[19]20”.
Third edition of Barclay’s translation, first printed by Pynson in 1509. Edited by T.H. Jamieson, this is a fine edition, and a beautiful example of Victorian book-making. The numerous woodcuts are facsimiles of those in Brant’s original edition of 1497. The translation by Barclay (c. 1484–1552) is not literal but an adaptation to English conditions, and gives a picture of contemporary English life. “The work enabled him to mount attacks on a range of contemporary social groups and practices: attacks which accord with traditions of social criticism going back to the fourteenth century, while reflecting some of the concerns of humanist writers in the early sixteenth. His targets included fond parents and ungrateful children, inconstant and evil women, all who wore extravagant clothes, pluralist clergy, ignorant gentlemen, avaricious merchants, corrupt lawyers and physicians, riotous servants, and sturdy undeserving beggars” (ODNB).
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