The Histories Of Gargantua And Pantagruel
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Excellent
Jacket: No dust jacket - cloth/board in good condition
Pages: Good
Few works in the Western literary canon match the anarchic brilliance and philosophical depth of François Rabelais's The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel, a sprawling, ribald masterpiece that chronicles the fantastical adventures of two giant kings — father Gargantua and his son Pantagruel — across a richly imagined Renaissance world teeming with satire, scholarship, and scandalous comedy. Written across five books in 16th-century France, this monumental work presents a savage and gleeful critique of medieval scholasticism, religious hypocrisy, and political tyranny, all wrapped in layers of bawdy humour, learned wordplay, and exuberant storytelling that defies easy categorisation. Rabelais, himself a physician, monk, and humanist, crafted a narrative universe where intellectual curiosity and carnivalesque excess are celebrated as twin virtues of the liberated human spirit — a philosophy that would profoundly influence writers from Voltaire to James Joyce. Translated here with wit and scholarly precision by John M. Cohen, and illustrated by the gifted Frank C. Papé, this Franklin Library edition is a sumptuous presentation of a text that continues to challenge, delight, and unsettle readers centuries after its composition. For anyone who has yet to encounter the world of Rabelais, the question is not whether to read it, but whether they are ready for it.
Author: François Rabelais
Format: Hardback
Published: 1982, The Franklin Library
Genre: Classic fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Excellent
Jacket: No dust jacket - cloth/board in good condition
Pages: Good
Few works in the Western literary canon match the anarchic brilliance and philosophical depth of François Rabelais's The Histories of Gargantua and Pantagruel, a sprawling, ribald masterpiece that chronicles the fantastical adventures of two giant kings — father Gargantua and his son Pantagruel — across a richly imagined Renaissance world teeming with satire, scholarship, and scandalous comedy. Written across five books in 16th-century France, this monumental work presents a savage and gleeful critique of medieval scholasticism, religious hypocrisy, and political tyranny, all wrapped in layers of bawdy humour, learned wordplay, and exuberant storytelling that defies easy categorisation. Rabelais, himself a physician, monk, and humanist, crafted a narrative universe where intellectual curiosity and carnivalesque excess are celebrated as twin virtues of the liberated human spirit — a philosophy that would profoundly influence writers from Voltaire to James Joyce. Translated here with wit and scholarly precision by John M. Cohen, and illustrated by the gifted Frank C. Papé, this Franklin Library edition is a sumptuous presentation of a text that continues to challenge, delight, and unsettle readers centuries after its composition. For anyone who has yet to encounter the world of Rabelais, the question is not whether to read it, but whether they are ready for it.