John Grant's preface, essay (“Erasmus’ Adages”), and translation of the 1506 Collectanea, which form part 1 of volume 30 of the Collected Works of Erasmus (CWE), and William Barker's seven indexes to all the adages published in CWE volumes 30 to 36 will be warmly welcomed by all scholars of Erasmus. These indexes include Erasmus's 1528 note on indexes (369), a Greek index (372), a Latin index, an index of early modern English proverbs (550), “a translation of Erasmus’ own Index of Topics followed by a listing of the topics in alphabetical order, English and Latin (568), the main English Index of Erasmus’ Adages (635) with a Supplementary Index of Names (767), and an Index of Scriptural References (836)” (ix). This apparatus should enable anyone to navigate the adages quickly—even more so now with CWE's electronic version of this volume. Volume 30, which contains Erasmus's earliest adages, though last to appear in CWE, completes this excellent series of his widely popular, influential work.

Grant finds the genesis of Erasmus's adages in his educational activity in Paris, after he enrolled there in 1495 to study theology. To support himself, he wrote treatises on education, which eventually led him to gather the classical proverbs he first published with Johann Philipp in mid-summer of 1500 as the Adagiorum collectanea, a work meant for students to enhance their oral and written expression, and one, he writes, “likely to bring some profit and pleasure to its prospective readers: those … who dislike the current jargon and are searching for greater elegance and a more refined style” (4). In straitened financial circumstances, Erasmus began first with a modest seventy-six leaves; his work was reprinted in 1505, and “a corrected and slightly enlarged second edition of the Collectanea appeared in Paris at the end of 1506,” published by Josse Bade. It is this 1506 corrected version that forms the basis of Grant's present translation. The Collectanea’s success quickly gathered momentum; numerous reprints followed, eventually expanding into his Aldine Adagiorum Chiliades, of 1508 (groups of one thousand adages), an enlarged second edition with Johan Froben, in 1514, and seven further expanded editions with Froben, the final published near the end of his life, in March of 1536, containing 4,151 adages with additional commentary.

The idea for a book of adages likely came to Erasmus from many sources, including letters of Italian humanists like Angelo Poliziano, Ermolao Barbaro, Pico della Mirandola, and, perhaps, a rather mutilated manuscript collection of Greek proverbs that he owned. The 1506 Collectanea, which differed somewhat from the 1500 edition, contained 971 proverbs, although the final proverb ends at 838, due to errors in numbering and adjustments to the text. Some 60 percent of the proverbs come from Latin authors, and of the Greeks Plato (though in Marsilio Ficino's Latin translation) commands first place. Plutarch is cited in Latin translation, but other proverbs are cited in Greek. The 1506 edition supplemented many entries in the 1500 edition with the Greek proverbs that had appeared earlier in Latin, and in subsequent editions Erasmus added more proverbs as his knowledge of and the availability of more Greek sources advanced, as he became familiar with other anthologies of ancient proverbs, as new publications became available, and as he read (and reread) Latin and Greek authors, pagan and Christian. Included too in the 1506 edition are some contemporary proverbs and a few from the Old and New Testaments. Grant also gives a detailed list of and valuable commentary on the sources (classical, medieval, and modern proverb collections; Greek authors; Christian writers; Latin authors; and humanists) Erasmus mined for proverbs and commentary. Upon his success with the 1506 Collectanea, Erasmus projected a vast expansion of his work (proverbs and commentary), which appeared at the Aldine Press in 1508 as the Adagiorum Chiliades, with 3,271 adages. In this monumental and widely successful production, adages were “grouped in thousands and … numbered consecutively within each thousand” (21), a format that foreshadowed the later practice of numbering “by thousands and by centuries” in the 1515 edition. Grant provides an interesting look at Erasmus's methods of reusing materials from his earlier editions as he incorporates earlier work, collects more adages, delves into other sources, and adds new commentary. Erasmus himself tells us that the world of Aldus opened up abundant sources of proverbs he could hardly have imagined.

William Barker and John Grant, like the other contributors to CWE volumes 30 to 36, have clearly achieved their aim in these volumes: “to provide an accurate and fluent English version of the original text, with the identification of the many sources upon which Erasmus drew” (CWE 36, ix). This they have done, and so much more. It is an admirable achievement.