Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into very many received Tenents, and commonly presumed Truths.

Browne (Sir Thomas)

Pseudodoxia Epidemica: or, Enquiries into very many received Tenents, and commonly presumed Truths.

Description: FIRST EDITION, imprimatur and final blank (Bbb6) present, title and text printed within ruled borders, woodcut ornaments, lightly toned with occasional unobtrusive marks, foreedge of first couple of quires a little browned and frayed, pp. [xviii], 386, [2], folio in 4's, contemporary full polished speckled sheep, triple blind rule, spine with raised bands and red label; rebacked preserving a portion of the original spine, old worming to the upper board; contemporary ownership inscription of John Francis Howell; a good copy.

Publication Details: London: T.H. for Edward Dod [...] in Ivie Lane. 1646

Notes: Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica was not so much an attempt to expose the fallacies of popular belief but a direct appeal to the learned men of his day for whom 'intellectual acquisition is but reminiscential evocation, and new impressions but the colouring of old stamps which stood pale in the soul before.' (Browne). 'The great merit of the "Vulgar Errors", as a contribution to contemporary thought, was that it took a long series of pragmatical assertions about phenomena, and showed that they broke down in the face of experience.' (Edmund Gosse, 'Thomas Browne'). While essentially a serious-min...moreBrowne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica was not so much an attempt to expose the fallacies of popular belief but a direct appeal to the learned men of his day for whom 'intellectual acquisition is but reminiscential evocation, and new impressions but the colouring of old stamps which stood pale in the soul before.' (Browne). 'The great merit of the "Vulgar Errors", as a contribution to contemporary thought, was that it took a long series of pragmatical assertions about phenomena, and showed that they broke down in the face of experience.' (Edmund Gosse, 'Thomas Browne'). While essentially a serious-minded treatise the work is not without humour or literary merit and retains its appeal for the modern reader due to '... the variety and oddity of his matter, the piquant contrast between most of the topics and the polysyllabic arguments woven about them, and the continual revelation, even in this factual and impersonal book, of the author's temperament.' (D. Bush, 'English Literature in the earlier Seventeenth Century'). There is an alternative 1646 imprint (73A) with the printer's name in full and with no address, which Keynes reports as 'less usual', though the rest of the title-page was printed from the same setting 'so the change was probably made while the book was in press'. HIDE

Bibliography: (Keynes 73b; Wing B5159; ESTC R1093; Waller 19462)