John Jortin, D. D. — The Life of Erasmus

London, Printed by Richard Taylor for John White , 1808. First edition. Leather. An uncommon three-volume edition of John Jortin's comprehensive history of Erasmus, with the very scarce appendix volume. The first three-volume edition, issued and complete with the very scarce third appendix volume. First published 1758-60.Rebacked, with contemporary tree calf boards and crushed morocco spines. With small signatures gilt-stamped to the front boards. Renewed endpapers. With an engraved portrait frontispiece to Vol I.Jortin's work covers the life, education and career of Erasmus, a Dutch humanist, Christian theologist and pioneering philologist and educationalist. He was, through his writings and translations, one of the most influential scholars of the Northern Renaissance and a major figure of Western culture. With remarks on his works.Volume I covers from A.D. 1467 to A.D. 1529, and Volume II covers from A.D. 1530 to A.D. 1536. Volume III offers extracts from Erasmus and from other writers, with an index to the work.From English church historian, John Jortin, whose five-volume Remarks on Ecclesiastical History has been labelled "the most significant Anglican ecclesiastical history of the eighteenth century"; written "from a markedly latitudinarian perspective", it was respected by Gibbon. Rebacked, with contemporary tree calf boards and crushed morocco spines. Externally, front joint to Vol III is weak. Front board to Vol I held only by cords. Front joint to Vol II tender. Rubbing to the extremities. Internally, firmly bound. Pages are bright and generally clean, with occasional spots, heaviest to the first and last few leaves. Offsetting to title page of Vol I caused by frontispiece. Good Only . Ill.: None. Good Only .