Excerpt from The Inestimable Life of the Great Gargantua, Father of PantagruelThere is happily no necessity, at the close of this century of progress and enlightenment, to preface a new edition of the Works of Doctor F rangois Rabelais (calling himself anagram matically Monsieur Alcofribas Nasier) with an apology for printing it. If such an apology were needed, the statement that the translation used in these volumes has been, in one form or another, before the English-reading public for upwards of two centuries would be deemed by most people (it is known to have in¿uenced the decision of one of our most eminent judges in favour of Rabelaz': considered as an English classic) a sufficient defence against possible attacks from the professional puritan. It is equally unnecessary to enlarge upon the aims and objects with which this most remarkable man composed his romances, seeing that the subject has already been exhaustively treated in the prefixes to the present edition.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.