Union Académique Internationale

Project nº21, adopted in 1964

The project comprises the critical edition of the collected works of Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam (Rotterdam, most likely 1466 - Basel, 1536). The project is also known as ASD, the Amsterdam Edition, after the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences and its original publisher, the North-Holland Publishing Company, both based in Amsterdam. It is preceded by two editions of collected works: the first published in Basel a few years after his death (BAS), and the eighteenth-century Leiden edition (LB). Both editions consist of the last versions of the works printed in Erasmus's lifetime, not taking into account the adaptations Erasmus made in earlier published versions, and cannot count as critical editions. The need for a modern critical edition was formulated by a small group of Dutch scholars in the early sixties of the twentieth century. It would mean introducing the writings, elucidating their genesis and their early printing history, putting the works into context as well, considering all revisions Erasmus made to them and offering philological and historical notes and commentaries. With the support of the Royal Netherlands Academy, the City of Rotterdam and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research the project was started under the patronage of the Union Académique Internationale. In those first years, the UAI also offered financial support. In October 1969, the first volume was presented in Rotterdam to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands.

To date (May 2018) fifty volumes have been published, two are in the press and thirteen more await publication. The Conseil international pour l'édition des œuvres complètes d'Érasme, founded in 1963, is directing the work on the edition. Its triennial meetings usually take place in Rotterdam. As a rule, the Dutch members of the Conseil who are acting as an executive board meet twice annually. The editorial work itself is done by scholars located in several countries, sometimes in close collaboration with the Collected Works of Erasmus (CWE) in English translation, published by the University of Toronto Press. The board of CWE is represented on the Conseil. There is a Comité de Rédaction with the task to examine the edited texts on their scholarly merits before these are sent to the press. The editors write their introductions, notes and commentaries in English, French or German. The executive Secretariat is assisting the editors and coordinating the edition with the help of the Comité de Rédaction as well as seeing the volumes through the press. The Secretariat, originally a small, virtually independent institute of the Royal Netherlands Academy, is now part of a considerably more recent institute of the same Academy, the Huygens Institute of the History of the Netherlands based in Amsterdam. The edition is arranged according to the canon laid down by Erasmus himself, i.e. his writings are divided into categories (Ordines). Ordo I: writings on philology and education; Ordo II: proverbs and similar sayings (Adagia); Ordo III: correspondence, not published in ASD because of the existence of the superb edition of the letters by P.S. Allen, H.M. Allen and H.W. Garrod; Ordo IV: writings on moral issues; Ordo V: writings related to religious instruction; Ordo VI: edition, Latin translation and annotation of the Greek New Testament; Ordo VII; Paraphrases of the New Testament; Ordo VIII: writings related to the Church Fathers; Ordo IX: Polemics (Apologiae). A tome may contain a voluminous single work only, or a number of texts.

The volumes are distributed through subscription to the series, but individual volumes can be acquired, too. In addition, many tomes can be consulted on the internet via the online library and publishing platform OAPEN. Not only those who are interested in Erasmus and his writings are consulting ASD, but also many scholars working on Early Modern European history and literature in general, as the edition opens up new perspectives in these fields as well.