In his own day a center of controversy, in the four hundred years since his death known too often solely as an apostle of mockery and irreverence, Erasmus can be seen today in a new lightas a humanist whose concen is at once contemporary and Christian.

The Essential Erasmusis the first single volume in English to show the full spectrum of this Renaissance man’s thought, which is no less profound because it is expressed with the grace, wit, and ironic detachment only a great writer can achieve.

Contains the full text ofIn Praise of Folly