ERASMUS, Desiderius (1466-1536). Libellus novus et elegans … de Pueris statim ac liberaliter instituendis, cum aliis compluribus, quorum catalogum indicabit versa pagella. Basel: Hieronymus Froben, Johannes Hervagium, & Nicolaus Episcopius, September 1529.

The very rare First Froben edition of Erasmus's lively treatise on the education of young boys, in a contemporary binding. Originally composed as early as 1509 as a companion to his De copia verborum ac rerum, this rhetorical declamatio urges parents to expose children to a liberal education at the youngest possible age. Erasmus assembles a dazzling array of arguments, full of wisdom from Classical antiquity and the Bible as well as contemporary anecdotes and psychological insight, against rote learning and corporal punishment and instead in favor of a playful approach to education. In the prefatory letter, he writes that friends had persuaded him to finally put the text into print, and seems to have come to a realization of the importance of this work to his overall intellectual program. The Bibliotheca Erasmiana reports 6 editions printed in 1529 from various presses, most in a smaller octavo format. The last copy of any of those editions of this major work of educational philosophy was recorded at auction was in 1954. Bibliotheca Erasmiana p. 163; Adams E-336.

Quarto (212 x 154mm). Greek and Latin types. Woodcut printer's device on title and final page (dampstained, upper edge nibbled, a little marginal worming at ends). Contemporary Rhineland blindstamped calf [EBDB w002565, “Dreiblatt ornamental frei I”] (rebacked preserving some of original spine, lacking ties). Provenance: marginalia in at least two hands, mostly in Latin with a few Greek words; later Strasbourg ink stamp.