Essays or Counsels

Bacon's Essays, expanded through editions of 1597, 1612, and 1625, are brief counsels on public and private life. Each piece takes a topic - truth, death, revenge, adversity, marriage, atheism, empire, gardens, studies - and offers compressed observations on how a man of affairs should act and judge. The manner is aphoristic rather than narrative. Bacon writes for readers who hold office or hope to, and he treats virtue, cunning, and fortune as practical problems. The volume is a handbook of civil wisdom, not an autobiography, and its unity is the method of weighing advantages rather than telling a life.

Bound in cream parchment stamped with the title and decorative borders. Red slipcase decorated with a repeat pattern of ornaments.