Stultifera Navis; The Modern Ship of Fools.

MODERN SHIP OF FOOLS

First edition. 8vo. 302 pp., with the hand-coloured folding frontispiece illustration, by John Augustus Atkinson, "Fools Passing the Portico of Folly", and woodcut on title page. Original blue publisher's boards, printed paper label, re-backed using the original spine, fore and lower edges untrimmed (very slightly rubbed at the edges and bumped at the corners).

 

London: for William Miller, 1807

William Ireland borrows the Latin title of Sebastian Brant's famous satire "Ship of Fools"m first published in Germany in 1494, and borrows the style, that is satirising the vices and follies of the time, each of the many chapters poking fun at various professions and pastimes, including 'Of Foolish Collectors of Books', 'Of Foolish Poets', and 'Of Foolish Marriages'. Atkinson, the author of the frontispiece, was an accomplished watercolour artist as well as an illustrator and engraver. He studied his craft under the tutelage of his uncle James Walker at the court of Catherine the Great.

 

Provenace: J. O. Edwards bookplate.

Stock Code: 215851