Erasmus of Rotterdam came from an obscure background and through remarkable perseverance, skill, and vision became a powerful intellectual figure in Europe in the early sixteenth century. He was known for his vigorous opposition to war, intolerance and hypocrisy, and at the same time for an irony and subtlety that could confuse his friends as well as his opponents. His ideas influenced the rise of the Reformation and had a huge impact on the humanities, and that continues to today. This book shows how an independent textual scholar was able, by the power of the printing press and his own wits, to attain both fame and notoriety. Erasmus of Rotterdam is the first popular biography in English in thirty years and is based on the immense amount of recent scholarship devoted to Erasmus.