The Oxford Francis Bacon I: Early Writings 1584-1596 - Tapa dura

The level of scholarship on display is deeply impressive; not only has Stewart obviously spent a considerable amount of time in archive and library collections, but he has also provided remarkably detailed commentaries accompanying each work ... a monumental achievement. (James Everest, The British Journal for the History of Science)

a major scholarly project ... scholars will be grateful for the vast amount of labour it embodies. (Keith Thomas, London Review of Books)

thorough and systematic ... The editors' conclusions and educated guesses stand as the result of open inquiry, metholodical research and orientation towards the guiding star of this collection: the editors' impressive familiarity with Bacon's known writings. (John C. Briggs, Times Literary Supplement)

Stewart's edition allows an examination of the kind of writing that Bacon developed in his early pieces, which played a role in shaping his natural philosophical work ... the Oxford Francis Bacon I reminds us that Bacon's significance for the history of science may lie as much in the way in which he wrote as in what he wrote. (James Everest, Intellectual History Review)

superbly edited (Markku Peltonen, Renaissance Quarterly)

The level of scholarship on display is deeply impressive; not only has Stewart obviously spent a considerable amount of time in archive and library collections, but he has also provided remarkably detailed commentaries accompanying each work. This edition will be considered definitive until new witnesses are (as they inevitably will be) uncovered. (James Everest, British Journal for the History of Science)

This volume belongs to the new critical edition of the complete works of Francis Bacon (1561-1626). The edition presents the works in broadly chronological order and in accordance with the principles of modern textual scholarship. This volume contains Bacon's earliest known writings, dating from 1584 to 1596, comprising position papers, commentaries on printed works, legal readings and opinions, and discourses of advice, usually written in response to specific events or demands, and circulated in manuscript. Bacon's writings to 1596 generally reflect his professional occupations: legal, political, and parliamentary. They include substantial writings on the Martin Marprelate controversy of 1588-1589, Roman Catholic attacks on Elizabeth's government (1593); dramatic entertainments put on at Gray's Inn and the court; tracts on important legal cases of the period; notes from his extensive reading; and letters of advice written for and to Bacon's patron, Robert Devereux, second earl of Essex. Despite the 'occasional' nature of these writings, there is clearly visible across them the early signs - 'seeds' as their author would call them-of the philosophy Francis Bacon would later come to write. The writings are presented with substantial introductions, and full commentaries and glossaries