Assembled for the young Prince William of Cleves, Erasmus’ Apophthegmata consists of thousands of sayings and anecdotes collected from Greek and Latin literature for the moral education of the future ruler. Betty I. Knott and Elaine Fantham’s two-volume annotated translation of the aphorisms and Erasmus’ commentary on them makes this once popular literary and educational text accessible to modern audiences. The introduction discusses the origins of the Apophthegmata, the contents of the collection, and Erasmus’ sources.

Volumes 37 and 38 of the Collected Works of Erasmus series – Two-volume set.

Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536), a Dutch humanist, Catholic priest, and scholar, was one of the most influential Renaissance figures. A professor of divinity and Greek, Erasmus wrote, taught, and travelled, meeting with Europe’s foremost scholars. A prolific author, Erasmus wrote on both ecclesiastic and general human interest subjects.

Desiderius Erasmus' profile page

Elaine Fantham is Giger Professor Emerita of Latin at Princeton University and an honorary fellow at Trinity College, University of Toronto. She is former president of the American Philological Association and was awarded a Distinguished Service Medal by the association in 2009. She is a coauthor of Women in the Classical World: Image and Text.

Elaine Fantham's profile page

Betty I. Knott is a Senior Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Classics at the University of Glasgow.

Betty I. Knott-Sharpe's profile page

‘The English edition of the Apopthegmata represents an imposing work of scholarship which would be of great interest, not just to students and scholars who lack linguistic skills to read Erasmus in the original Greek & Latin but to specialists who wish to gain deeper understanding of one of the most popular and influential works of the sixteenth century.’

Erasmus Studies vol 36:2016

‘This addition to the Toronto Collected Woks displays all the virtues of the previous volumes of the project. The translators have produced a very readable text, one that even invites reading aloud, as no doubt was the intent of the original.’

Sixteenth Century Journal vol 46:03:2015