title: Praise of Folly (Penguin Classics)
author:  Desiderius Erasmus 
description: Desiderius Erasmus,(bornOctober 27, 1469,Rotterdam, HollanddiedJuly 12, 1536,Basel,Switzerland) was the greatest scholar of the northern Renaissance, the first editor of theNew Testament, and an important figure in classical literature.He helped lay the groundwork for the historical-critical study of the past, and his educational writings contributed to the replacement of the older scholastic curriculum by the new humanist emphasis on the classics. By criticizing ecclesiastical abuses, he encouraged the growing urge for reform, andhis independent stance in an age of fierce controversymade him a target of suspicion for loyal partisans on both sides and a beacon for those who valued liberty over orthodoxy.<br /><br /><br />Betty Radice read classics at Oxford, and became joint editor of Penguin Classics in 1964. As well as editing the translation of Livys <i>The War</i> with Hannibal she translated Livys <i>Rome</i> and <i>Italy</i>, Plinys <i>Letters</i>, <i>The Letters of Abelard and Heloise</i> and Erasmuss <i>Praise of Folly</i>, and also wrote the introduction to Horaces <i>Complete Odes and Epodes</i>, all for Penguin Classics. She also edited Edward Gibbons <i>Memoirs of My Life</i> for the Penguin English Library, and edited and annotated her translation of the younger Plinys works for the Loeb Library of Classics and translated from Renaissance Latin, Greek and Italian for the Officina Bodoni of Verona. She collaborated as a translator in the <i>Collected Works of Erasmus</i>, and was the author of the Penguin Reference Book <i>Whos Who in the Ancient World</i>. Betty Radice was an honorary fellow of St Hildas College, Oxford, and a vice-president of the Classical Association. She died in 1985.
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  THE PRAISE OF FOLLY
  
  ![](Images/image00140.jpeg)
  
  THE PRAISE OF FOLLY
  
  BY DESIDERIUS ERASMUS
  
   _Translated from the Latin, with an Essay & Commentary,_  
   _by Hoyt Hopewell Hudson_
  
   _With an new foreword by Anthony Grafton_
  
  PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS  
  PRINCETON AND OXFORD
  
  Copyright © 1941, 1969 by Princeton University Press
  
  New foreword © 2015 by Princeton University Press
  
  Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to
  Permissions, Princeton University Press
  
  Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street
  
  Princeton, New Jersey 08540
  
  In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press,
  
  6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW
  
  [press.princeton.edu](http://press.princeton.edu)
  
  All Rights Reserved
  
  First Princeton Paperback Edition, 1970
  
  First Princeton Classics Edition, with a new foreword by
  
  Anthony Grafton, 2015
  
  Paperback ISBN: 978-0-691-16564-6
  
  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015930404
  
  O