Binding: Paperback Dewey Decimal Number: 824.3 EAN: 9780192840813 ISBN: 0192840819 Label: Oxford University Press, USA Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 864 Publication Date: October 24, 2002 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA Sales Rank: 515272 Studio: Oxford University Press, USA
Product DescriptionThis authoritative edition brings together an extensive collection of Bacon's writing--the major prose in full, together with sixteen other pieces not otherwise available--that reveals the essence of his work and thinking.
Francis Bacon held some of the highest public offices in the land and in his spare time studied natural philosophy and a wide variety of other subjects. His systematic classification of all branches of knowledge became the basis for all later constructions, and his Essays are unsurpassed in their observations on society and human behavior. This extensive anthology includes the major English literary works on which his reputation rests: the Advancement of Learning, the Essays (1625, as well as the earliest version of 1597), and the posthumously published Utopian fable the New Atlantis (1626). In addition it reprints other works which illustrate Bacon's abilities in politics, law, theology, and poetry.
A special feature of the edition is its extensive annotation which identifies Bacon's sources and allusions, and elucidates his vocabulary
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - Missing a key text
I was very disappointed that Vickers decided to leave out NOVUM ORGANUM, one of Bacon's most important work, with one of the first descriptions of the scientific method, empirical science, and his key critique of the four "idols." Vickers says that he decided to give only the works in English, and NOVUM ORGANUM was written in Latin. There are translations available, however. The title of the book, THE MAJOR WORKS, is deceiving.
Rating: - The Best Bacon in Paperback
I concur with Gulley Jimson about the number of unnecessarily annotated words. The space could have been put to better use: a larger topical index would have been welcome, and I sorely missed Bacon's own apophthegms. But I would emphasize the positive point Jimson makes and do so in capital letters: this is the BEST edition of Bacon in paperback. Every page of the collection shows immense editorial care.
Though Vickers may have overdone the annotation, the notes are nonetheless ... Read More
Rating: - Meet Brian Vickers, insane pedant
I actually recommended this edition in another review over the Penguin collection of Bacon's essays - and I still do: there is more here, and it is cheaper. But this is still one of the most horrible pieces of scholarship I have ever come across. Vickers, the editor, has decided that there is absolutely no distinction between what a reader actually needs to know and what Brian Vickers happens to know.
Before I give some examples, here is the editor defending himself in the Preface: ... Read More
- Missing a key text
- The Best Bacon in Paperback
- Meet Brian Vickers, insane pedant
