ERASMUS, Desiderius (1466-1536). De duplici Copia, Verborum ac rerum Commentarii duo [And:] Epistola Erasmi Roterodami, ad Iacobum Vuymphelingium Selestatinum [And:] Parabolae, sive Similia. Strasbourg: Matthias Schuerer, 1514. [Bound with:] –. Collectanea Adagiorum veterum. Strasbourg: Matthias Schuerer, April 1515.

Sammelband of Strasbourg editions of important didactic works by Erasmus, including first editions of his Parabolae and letter to Jakob Wimpfeling, as well as new authorized editions of his treatise on Latin style and the famous Adages. Matthias Schuerer became Erasmus's preferred publisher in Strasbourg after rather audaciously printing a pirated edition of the Adages in 1510. Rather than reacting with anger, Erasmus was impressed and befriended Schuerer, beginning a life-long professional relationship.

Erasmus's Copia was a work long in the making, an exhaustive treatise on Latin style and eloquence begun by 1499 and continually reworked over the years. When he learned in 1512, while in residence at the University of Cambridge, that an unauthorized edition might be produced from a manuscript he had left behind in Italy, Erasmus rushed to print a shorter version of the text, dedicated to and for use by Dean Colet of Saint Paul's School in London. He continued to tinker with the text over the following years, and the present edition is a newly authorized and substantially updated version. Schuerer's new edition includes the first appearance of Erasmus's Parabolae, a work which was the by-product of Erasmus's time revising the Adagia. It collects ancient aphorisms and metaphors from antiquity which did not quite fit into the latter compilation. "It was all potentially material for the man who wished to learn from the ancients to live wisely, but also to think clearly and to write compellingly" (CWE 23). With that publication is bound here also a later (this time, authorized) Schuerer edition of the Adagia, with significant contemporary annotations in German. First work: Adams E-318; VD16 ZV 5245; Bezzel 738 and 1362; Second work: Adams E-424; VD16 E 1916; Bezzel 54

Two works bound in one, quarto (194 x 128mm). Roman and Greek types. First work with woodcut initials, second with woodcut border to title page and woodcut printer's device on final leaf, both with later decoration added in pale red ink (occasional stains, a few scattered wormholes in lower margin). Early 18th-century Austrian blindstamped pigskin over beveled boards, stamped with gilt supralibros, edges red, clasps and catches, morocco label and ink title on spine, index tabs (slight worming, supralibros worn). Provenance: marginalia in several hands in Latin and German, some trimmed – partially effaced inscription on title page: "?? Von Inishardt" – Johann Franz Bessel, Abbot Gottfried of Göttweig Abbey, 1672-1749, diplomat, palaeographer, and collector (gilt supralibros on boards).