For four hundred and thirty years the pungent satire and polished wit of Erasmus have not only furnished delectation for the reader, but have also exerted a stimulating intellectual influence on writers and thinkers in succeeding centuries. The profundity of the great Renaissance scholar's thought, animated by the charm of his presentation, makes The Praise of Folly one of the great and satisfying adventures in literary discovery, and Mr. Hudson's translation conveys all the wisdom and appeal of the Erasmus's spirit.

He is the first writer to present Folly in a modern guise, for the other translations now in circulation date from the seventeenth century.

No other book displays quite so completely the transition from the medieval to the modern world, and Folly's declamation has never lost its timeliness in displaying the critical spirit at its best, allied with the comic spirit.

A brilliant introductory essay by Mr. Hudson sets the stage for the oration of the goddess, who is represented by Erasmus as declaiming from a pulpit on the delights of folly. Of particular interest is Mr. Hudson's discerning analysis of the background, both classical and contemporary, which prompted Erasmus to adopt his method of treatment.

"There is no more joyous and delightful bit of forensic jugglery than Desiderius Erasmus's The Praise of Folly and a debt of gratitude is owed Professor Hoyt Hopewell Hudson for translating the old Latin of 1511 into lively, vivid, contemporary English, at once lucid and free—a translation that will not only please the scholar but will make the book available for the more casual reader who might be discouraged by the archaic English of some of the previous renderings.

Like all great minds Erasmus has the faculty of being perennially contemporary, and The Praise of Folly is a gay, witty revelation of the subtleties and intricacies of the scholarly mind of the Renaissance."

EDWARD LAROCQUE TINKER, The New York Times

"The commonly reprinted translations of Erasmus's The Praise of Folly are all of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There can be no doubt that Professor Hudson's new version surpasses these in scholarship and accuracy. It succeeds also in the more difficult task of faithfully rendering the spirit of Erasmus's Latin."

Modern Language Quarterly