This edition includes, in addition to the most pertinent sections of The Fable’s two volumes, a selection from Mandeville’s An Enquiry into the Origin of Honor and selections from two of Mandeville’s most important sources: Pierre Bayle and the Jansenist Pierre Nicole. Hundert’s Introduction places Mandeville in a number of eighteenth-century debates—particularly that of the nature and morality of commercial modernity—and underscores the degree to which his work stood as a central problem, not only for his immediate English contemporaries, but for such philosophers as Hume, Rousseau, and Kant. The selections are substantive enough to faithfully represent Mandeville the social theorist, and compact enough to be used in courses that can afford to spend no more than a week on his work.

“Hundert is especially good at demonstrating how vital Mandeville’s ideas are as a major foundation for more famous Enlightenment thinkers such as Rousseau, Diderot, Voltaire and others. . . . The additions of Nicole and Bayle will be useful in courses on 18th century ethics and morals, and in general surveys of Enlightenment thought. This is probably the best one-volume edition of the main works of Mandeville now available.”

—Irwin Primer, Rutgers University

“An excellent edition of a much needed text. E. J.. Hundert’s addition of clear biographies, a coherent introduction, an appendix, and suggested readings adds to the book’s evident value in graduate and undergraduate teaching. Hundert has done an admirable job of contextualizing Mandeville’s Fable in the philosophical debates of human morality and sociability that were crucial to the development of liberalism. There can be no better and affordable introduction to the sources for students than Hundert’s new edition of this classic.”

—Fabio Lopez-Lazari, Arizona State University

E. J. Hundert is Professor of History, the University of British Columbia.