For centuries readers have admired the writer who wields his pen like a sword - an Aristophanes, a Rabelais, a Montaigne, a Swift. Using ribaldry, satire and irony in varying proportions, such writers pierce the thick, comfortable hide of society and uncover, predictably, the corruption and hypocrisy that characterize the life of man in commercial society. Though a lesser talent than any of these literary giants, Bernard Mande ville is nevertheless a member of their class. The crucial year in the emergence of his reputation was 1723, the year in which he added his controversial Essay on Charity and Charity-Schools to his Fable of the Bees. From that point on he became one of the most reviled targets of the public guardians of morality and religion; for some he appeared to be truly the Devil incarnate, Mandevil, as Fielding and others spelled it. This reputation was attached to his name well into the nineteenth centu ry. In a diary entry for June 1812 Henry Crabb Robinson recorded the following conversation with the elderly Mrs. Buller: "She received me with a smile, and allowed me to touch her hand. 'What are you reading, Mr. Robinson?' she said. 'The wickedest cleverest book in the English language, if you chance to know it. ' - 'I have known the "Fable of the Bees" more than fifty years. ' She was right in her guess.
This edition can therefore be regarded as the most important republication of a Mandeville text in the last few decades, and should be required reading for anyone seriously concerned to understand the growth of his challenging ideas. " —Professor Irwin Primer in History of Political Thought Volume XXI Issue 4 "Mandeville's contributions to The Female Tatler are almost unknown but they are of fundamental importance for understanding The Fable of the Bees and a social theory that was to be of central importance to the Enlightenment's conception of modernity. The letters belong to the polemical world of early eighteenth-century journalism and have the energy, intelligence and gaiety characteristic of Grub Street at its best. They deal with many of the subjects which Mandeville was to make his own. Unexpectedly and excitedly, they also show how closely his thinking about society was bound up with his interest in the position in contemporary society. Vintage Mandeville, in fact." —Professor Nicholas Phillipson This book collects for the first time since their original publication the 32 papers which Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733), author of The Fable of the Bees (1st ed., 1714), contributed to The Female Tatler (1709-10), one of the many imitators of Richard Steele's Tatler. In these papers, Mandeville's protagonists, the sisters Lucinda and Artesia, discuss and debate the origin and basis of human society and its progress, honour and courage, the value of a life devoted to making money, and most importantly, the position and the virtues of women. The essays are fully annotated, providing significant information about Mandeville's sources and identifying historical and literary references. The volume also includes a substantive introduction by Maurice Goldsmith, a leading expert on Mandeville, explaining the relation of the papers to the social thought of the period and the development of Mandeville's views. The Female Tatler essays systematically address themes further developed in The Fable of the Bees, a work very widely read in the eighteenth century and which was a stimulus to the theories of (among others) David Hume and Adam Smith. The collection will be of interest to scholars of eighteenth-century English literature, history, political and economic thought, women's studies and philosophy. —first publication of these essays since the eighteenth century and the only available edition —extended debate on female virtue is an important element in the development of feminism —Mandeville's defence of luxury and consumption is significant in the history of the discussion of commercial society and capitalism
Die Bienenfabel erschien erstmals im Jahre 1714. Die zweite, „erweiterte und ergänzte“ Auflage wurde 1723 in London publiziert. Die dritte Auflage (1724) enthielt wiederum zahlreiche Ergänzungen und Verbesserungen sowie einen Anhang, „Eine Verteidigung des Buches …“. Weitere Auflagen erschienen in den Jahren 1725, 1728 und 1729. Teil II der Fabel (reproduziert als Band 4 der vorliegenden Faksimile- Ausgabe der Werke von Mandeville) wurde erstmals 1729 veröffentlicht. Die 1732er Edition beider Teile war die letzte, die zu Mandevilles Lebzeiten erschien. The Fable of the Bees was first published in 1714. The second edition came out in London in 1723 and was “Enlarged with many Additions”. The third edition (1724) contained further revisions and additions and, as an appendix, “A Vindication of the Book…”. Further editions appeared in 1725, 1728 and 1729. Part II of the Fable (reproduced as volume 4 of the present facsimile collection) was first published in 1729. The 1732 edition of both parts was the last to appear in Mandeville’s lifetime.
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