Besides the celebrated Praise of Folly, Robert M. Adams has includedthe political "Complaint of Peace," the brutal antipapal satire "JuliusExcluded from Heaven," two versions of Erasmus's important preface tothe Latin translation of the New Testament, and a selection bothserious and comic of his Colloquies and his letters. Adams has madethese selections to emphasize the humane, rather than the doctrinaire,side of the first and arguably greatest humanist.

Critical commentary is provided in essays by H. R. Trevor-Roper, R. S.Allen, J. Huizinga, Mikhail Bakhtin, Paul Oskar Kristeller, and RobertM. Adams.

Also included are a Chronology of Erasmus's life and a SelectedBibliography.