Before Goethe's »Werther« arrived on the scene, Sebastian Brant's (1457-1521) central work »The Ship of Fools« (1494ff.) was the most successful book ever published in German. In 112 chapters, this moral satire presents as many fools and follies to the reader, with a view to prompting Brant's contemporaries to take thought and mend their ways. One remarkable feature is the close connection between text and images, which did much to enhance the impact and the dissemination of the book when it was first published. The fourth reprint of this study edition is fully up to date in bibliographic terms and takes account of the renewed upsurge of research interest caused by the 500th anniversary (1994) of the first appearance of the book.