Descrizione

First edition, 4to, Gothic letter, [26], [252], [6]ff, 2 woodcuts (includes the woodcut of the Ship of Fools on the title), contemporaneous manuscript on A1-2, E4, G3-4, title-page lower gutter starting to split, some pages irregularly trimmed, with some edges uncut, some toning in places, occasional foxed spot, a handful of small repaired tears to fore-margins only, wormhole/holes to fore-margin throughout, both points of condition never affecting text, the fore-edge with traces of contemporaneous 16th c ink lettering, nineteenth-century vellum over boards, lettered in gilt, title and colophon leaves with Croydon Public Libraries stamps, somewhat erased on the former. The scarce first edition of Johann Geiler von Kaiserberg's thirty-seven sermons delivered at Strassburg from 1501 to 1502, influenced by Sebastian Brandt's Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools), in which he comments and satirises the follies and vices of his day. One of the sermons deals with libraries and book collectors, making mention, among other things, of Richard de Buryís ëPhilobiblon.í This edition precedes the 1511 edition, better known for its greater number of woodcuts. STC 335; Adams, G 315.