PUblished by the Folio Society, London in 1971. The book is in excellent condition with grey cloth with blue decorations to boards and spine, with title in gilt to spine. However, the slipcase is damaged, with one end ripped (pictured), but continues to protect the book.Translated by William Gillis and illustrated with the original 15th century woodcuts.
 
The ship of fools is a narrative poem, an allegory that has long been a fixture in Western literature and art. The allegory depicts a vessel populated by human inhabitants who are deranged, frivolous, or oblivious passengers aboard a ship without a pilot, and seemingly ignorant of their own direction. This concept makes up the framework of the 15th century book Ship of Fools (1494) by Sebastian Brant, which served as the inspiration for Bosch's famous painting, Ship of Fools: a ship an entire fleet at first sets off from Basel to the paradise of fools. In literary and artistic compositions of the 15th and 16th centuries, the cultural motif of the ship of fools also served to parody the 'ark of salvation'.