Gargantua and Pantagruel (The Modern Library of the World's Best Book, ML 4)

xii, 543, [4] pp. Introduction by Donald Douglas. Maroon cloth, gilt titles, yellow Rockwell Kent endpapers. "Parodying everyone from classic authors to his own contemporaries, the dazzling and exuberant stories of Rabelais expose human follies with mischievous and often obscene humor. Gargantua depicts a young giant who becomes a cultured Christian knight. Pantagruel portrays Gargantua's bookish son who becomes a Renaissance Socrates, divinely guided by wisdom and by his idiotic, self-loving companion, Panurge." "Francois Rabelais (c. 1494 - April 9, 1553) was a major French Renaissance writer, doctor and Renaissance humanist. He has historically been regarded as a writer of fantasy, satire, the grotesque, and both bawdy jokes and songs."