About Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon (1561-1626) is a thinker, writer and statesman who has incomparably marked the history of England as well as the development of philosophical and scientific thinking in the whole world. The present collection of essays is his first published volume. It consists of a number of elaborated discussions of topics related to private and public life such as “Of Love,” “Of Envy,” “Of Friendship” as well as “Of Empire” and “Of Seditions and Troubles.” Bacon approaches the different questions from varied vantage points and provides antagonistic arguments to make his reflections take the form of intellectual debates. Although Bacon’s essays are often compared to the works of classic theoreticians and philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle, his contemporary critics as well as modern ones insist on their special importance, value and depth. Some even consider Bacon to be the father of the essay form which has flourished after the publication of his volume. Today, The Essays of Francis Bacon is one of the most quoted works of the English tongue. The readers will discover that many of Bacon’s fragments have become popular proverbs and aphorisms that still survive in the modern Anglophone world.