A woodcut headpiece consisting of two horizontal rows of repeating ornaments. The top row features stylized figures or busts. The bottom row features floral or fleur-de-lis patterns, with a capital letter "Z" flanked by colons in the center.

T H E

Author's Epistle

T O

PETER GILES.

I am almost ashamed, my dearest Peter Giles, to send you this book of the Utopian Commonwealth original: "Common-Wealth" after a delay of almost a year, whereas you no doubt expected it within six weeks. As you know, I had no need to use my own invention original: "Invention"; in the context of 16th-century rhetoric, this refers to the creative faculty of the mind used to devise arguments or stories. or to take pains to organize things into a specific method. I had nothing to do but to repeat exactly those things that I heard Raphael Raphael Hythloday, the fictional traveler who serves as the narrator of the account of Utopia. relate in your presence.

Furthermore, there was no reason to use elaborate rhetoric original: "studied Eloquence", because he delivered these things to us spontaneously and in a casual style original: "Stile". As you know, he is a great master of—