This comprehensive treatment of a difficult but highly interesting work of eighteenth-century literature will be of great value to Mandeville scholars, sociologists, historians, and their students alike. Irwin Primer, professor emeritus from Rutgers University, brings his four decades of teaching and research to bear upon this authoritative text. His introduction emphasizes the complexity of A Modest Defence and the need to approach it speculatively. As Primer indicates, even the authorship of the treatise must be dealt with cautiously, though he concludes that there is convincing evidence that it was written by Bernard Mandeville. He goes on to lament that most scholars who have dealt with A Modest Defence have done so only superficially. They have taken its content at face value and seen it as a simple endorsement of the decriminalization of female prostitution for male sexual gratification.

Primer encourages readers to view the treatise as the work of a trained rhetorician, a seriocomic text riddled with a mixture of satire and sincerity. By his recognition of its use of the traditional essayist's tools of “satire, paradox, and the classical oration” (9), the purpose and meaning of A Modest Defence become much more ambiguous. Primer poses questions about the work at least as frequently as he makes firm conclusions. He takes the stance that the true intent of A Modest Defence is somewhat elusive. We can only guess at the portions of the treatise that were earnestly proposed and those that were only meant in jest, but Primer offers very reasonable hypotheses. For example, Mandeville was undoubtedly opposed to the work of the Societies for the Reformation of Manners, and he clearly upheld the sexual double standard privileging males that was so common for his era. At the same time, however, A Modest Defence is a strong supporter of the institution of marriage and of the need for state intervention in the sex trade. Those areas where Mandeville appears to take these arguments to more shocking levels may instead be rhetorical flights. Mandeville wrote for a highly educated genteel male audience, Primer argues. Such an audience would have found more laughter than alarm in the text.

The literary selections of this edition offer both breadth and depth. Primer explains at length the publication history of A Modest Defence. He presents both the version most commonly believed to be the first 1724 publication (which he dubs the “1724A” text) and an apparently corrected version that also came out that same year (called “1724B”). Also included are Remark (H.) and Remark (N.) from The Fable of the Bees, which contain similar content to A Modest Defence. In fact, Remark (H.) presents a parallel proposal and is thus commonly regarded as evidence of Mandeville's authorship of the later essay. The 1724B edition is followed by an appendix that first appeared in a 1740 publication of A Modest Defence, which gives a survey of past laws governing brothels in England. Two anonymous articles recommending “regulated stews,” published in 1749 and 1756, complete the selection.

In his notes to Mandeville's text, Primer marshals an impressive selection of expository material. His annotations demonstrate his comfort with classical texts as well as the most recent electronic resources, such as a Web site illuminating Onania, the early eighteenth-century text on masturbation, or one about the political struggles of London in the 1380s. He constantly reminds us that Mandeville wrote as much to practice feats of classical oration as to make a practical point. This is reflected in Primer's own commentaries on the essay, where he indiscriminately remarks upon Mandeville's literary style along with his meaning. For example, alongside his section relating the economic aspects of A Modest Defence is a word-frequency list of sexual terms that appear in the treatise. Primer points out that Mandeville was careful to eschew the more vulgar terms for prostitutes and their activities in favor of those that maintained a more traditional literary standard.

Not only does Primer securely anchor A Modest Defence within its own historical context, outlining the state of gender relations and the moral reform campaigns rampant at the time Mandeville wrote; he also pays tribute to the scholarly traditions that informed his rhetorical style and its impact upon or relevance to current debates surrounding prostitution. Primer acknowledges that Mandeville's argument would appear to contravene that of today's radical feminists who see prostitution as an instrument of patriarchy. Nonetheless, the editor's commentary reminds us that most of the satire in the work is aimed at “the enemies of free speech” and “that in this work harlots … are never the objects of his laughter or scorn” (138).

Primer begins the book by lamenting historians’ and sociologists’ tendency to oversimplify A Modest Defence. The meticulous presentation and informative commentary of this new edition make it unlikely that future readers will make the same mistake.