# Is "Religio Medici" by Sir Thomas Browne a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Religio Medici by Sir Thomas Browne (Andrew Crooke, London, 1642) is identified by: Two unauthorized editions appeared in 1642, both from Andrew Crooke in London, both published anonymously and without Browne's permission from a manuscript that reached Crooke, and both carrying the engraved title-page by William Marshall (active 1617-49): a figure tumbling headlong from a rock into the sea, caught by a hand issuing from the clouds, with the motto "a caelo salus" / "e coelo salus" and the words "Religio Medici" engraved on the plate. The unauthorized Crooke 1642 (London) is the first appearance in print and precedes the authorized text — the census claim is correct, though incomplete, since there are two 1642 editions whose order is contested (above).

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Two unauthorized editions appeared in 1642, both from Andrew Crooke in London, both published anonymously and without Browne's permission from a manuscript that reached Crooke, and both carrying the engraved title-page by William Marshall (active 1617-49): a figure tumbling headlong from a rock into the sea, caught by a hand issuing from the clouds, with the motto "a caelo salus" / "e coelo salus" and the words "Religio Medici" engraved on the plate
- The two are told apart by bulk: one collates 80 leaves, the other 96
- Their priority is genuinely disputed and there is no settled answer — Wilkin, Greenhill and Williams took the 96-leaf edition as the earlier
- Keynes (Bibliography of Sir Thomas Browne, 1924) reversed the order and made the 80-leaf edition first, on the evidence that Marshall's plate is definitely more worn in the 96-leaf copies
- Elizabeth Cook
- reversed it again on textual grounds, restoring the 96-leaf edition to first place
- Publisher imprint reads Andrew Crooke, London

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Sir Thomas Browne |
| Publisher | Andrew Crooke, London |
| Year | 1642 |
| True first | — |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Two unauthorized editions appeared in 1642, both from Andrew Crooke in London, both published anonymously and without Browne's permission… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Two unauthorized editions appeared in 1642, both from Andrew Crooke in London, both published anonymously and without Browne's permission from a manuscript that reached Crooke, and both carrying the engraved title-page by William Marshall (active 1617-49): a figure tumbling headlong from a rock into the sea, caught by a hand issuing from the clouds, with the motto "a caelo salus" / "e coelo salus" and the words "Religio Medici" engraved on the plate. The two are told apart by bulk: one collates 80 leaves, the other 96. Their priority is genuinely disputed and there is no settled answer — Wilkin, Greenhill and Williams took the 96-leaf edition as the earlier; Keynes (Bibliography of Sir Thomas Browne, 1924) reversed the order and made the 80-leaf edition first, on the evidence that Marshall's plate is definitely more worn in the 96-leaf copies; Elizabeth Cook (1948) reversed it again on textual grounds, restoring the 96-leaf edition to first place. A copy should therefore be described by leaf count and by the state/wear of the Marshall plate rather than called "the first edition" flatly. Wing B5166-B5167.

## Is this the true first?
The unauthorized Crooke 1642 (London) is the first appearance in print and precedes the authorized text — the census claim is correct, though incomplete, since there are two 1642 editions whose order is contested (above). Browne's authorized edition followed in 1643, again from Crooke, titled "Religio Medici. A true and full coppy of that which was most imperfectly and surreptitiously printed before under the name of Religio Medici"; it adds several leaves of prefatory matter and several hundred minor textual changes, and reuses or copies Marshall's plate. That Browne retained Crooke as publisher of the authorized version suggests tacit acceptance of the piracy. The 1643 is the first authorized edition, not a "first thus" reprint, and a serious collection holds the 1642 and 1643 as a pair. Sir Kenelm Digby's Observations upon Religio Medici (1643), which prompted Browne's authorized text, is a separate work commonly collected alongside. The work was reprinted about eight times in Browne's lifetime and translated into Latin, French, German, Dutch and Italian.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club dimension applies to a 17th-century book; the trap here is the facsimile and the modern edition. "Religio medici, being a facsimile of the first edition published in 1642, with an introduction by W. A. Greenhill" circulates widely and reproduces the 1642 setting, and is regularly mistaken for the original. Greenhill's Golden Treasury edition (Macmillan) and Keynes's 20th-century Works are modern editions. Any copy with a printed modern-English introduction, machine-made paper, or a publisher's cloth binding is not a 1642 Crooke.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Religio Medici* by Sir Thomas Browne a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/religio-medici
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.