Lot 262: BRANT, Sebastian (1458-1521). Stultifera navis, qua omnium mortalium narratur stultitia ... The Ship of Fooles, wherein is shown the folly of all states, with divers other workes. Translated into English from Jacob Locher's Latin version by

BRANT, Sebastian (1458-1521). Stultifera navis, qua omnium mortalium narratur stultitia ... The Ship of Fooles, wherein is shown the folly of all states, with divers other workes. Translated into English from Jacob Locher's Latin version by Alexander Barclay (1475?-1552). London: John Cawood, 1570.

2o (284 x 189 mm). Black letter, roman and italic type, single and double column, 118 woodcut illustrations printed from 107 blocks, initials and type ornaments. (Title-page lightly soiled and renewed in the gutter and corners, a few other marginal repairs not affecting text, occasional small rust-holes.) Late 18th century speckled calf, covers with border of blind fillets, spine in seven compartments with six raised bands, gilt-lettered in three (rebacked in the 19th century, scuffed).

Second edition. An unusually crisp, bright and tall copy. The illustrations are from the blocks cut for Pynson's edition of 1509. As Jackson notes, there are just three cuts in the 1509 edition which do not appear in the present one, and these had their places filled by repetition of cuts intended for other chapters. The blocks were not copied directly from the original Basel blocks (engraved by the Master of the Bergman Printing House) but from the Parisian copies made for the French translation of Pierre Rivière. The title woodcut is a copy of Lambert's edition, Paris, 1497. The English translator, Alexander Barclay (?1475-1552), was successively a priest in the college of Ottery St. Mary, Devon, a Benedictine monk at Ely, a Franciscan at Canterbury, and rector of All Hallows, Lombard Street, London. Grolier Langland to Wither 18; Pforzheimer 41; STC 3546.

Property of a Midwestern Collection