A Man of Singular Virtue — The Folio Society | Sir Thomas More | 1980 | First Edition | Illustrated | Annual Presentation Book

A fine first edition of the Folio Society's 1980 Annual Presentation Book, A Man of Singular Virtue — a beautifully produced account of one of the most extraordinary men in English history, in a binding of considerable elegance and character.

Sir Thomas More (1478–1535) was, by any measure, a figure of remarkable distinction: lawyer, humanist scholar, author of Utopia, friend of Erasmus, Lord High Chancellor of England under Henry VIII, and ultimately a martyr who chose death over the compromise of his conscience. His refusal to acknowledge Henry's break with Rome, his steadfast adherence to principle in the face of overwhelming power, and his courage at the scaffold have made him one of the enduring moral exemplars of Western history. He was canonised by the Catholic Church in 1935, four hundred years after his execution.

The primary text here is the biography written by More's own son-in-law William Roper — one of the great short biographies in the English language, intimate, vivid, and deeply moving. Roper knew More as well as any man alive, and his account of the final years, the trial, and the execution carries an authority and pathos that no later biographer has surpassed. Accompanying this is a selection of More's own letters, selected and introduced by the distinguished Tudor historian A.L. Rowse, whose eighteen-page introduction provides a characteristically authoritative context.

The Folio Society's production matches the gravity of its subject. Quarter bound in black cloth, the spine carrying elaborate gilt arabesque decoration of considerable beauty. Red cloth boards stamped in gilt with More's own Latin signature — Ego T. Morus — as it appears in his own hand. Green endpapers. Illustrated throughout with 57 colour and black and white plates reproducing portraits, manuscript facsimiles, contemporary paintings, and documents relating to More and his world — including the celebrated Holbein portraits. 127 pp.

Housed in the original cream card slipcase printed with a repeating red decorative border design.

The book itself is in fine condition throughout — boards bright and clean, gilt vivid and undimmed, pages fresh and unmarked, binding firm and square. The slipcase has a split and slight peeling to the top corner, as noted and visible in photographs, but is otherwise present and sound.

A distinguished piece for collectors of Tudor history, Renaissance humanism, English martyrology, Catholic biography, or fine Folio Society productions of the 1980s.