Gargantua and His Son Pantagruel

All five volumes. Illustrated with engravings by Gustave Dore. According to Wikipedia: 'The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel (French: La vie de Gargantua et de Pantagruel) is a pentalogy of novels written in the 16th century by Francois Rabelais, which tells of the adventures of two giants, Gargantua (pronounced: [E aE .E E .ty.a]) and his son Pantagruel ([pE .ta.E E y.E l]). The text is written in an amusing, extravagant, and satirical vein, and features much crudity, scatological humor, and violence (lists of explicit or vulgar insults fill several chapters). The censors of the College de la Sorbonne stigmatized it as obscene, and in a social climate of increasing religious oppression, it was treated with suspicion, and contemporaries avoided mentioning it. According to Rabelais, the philosophy of his giant Pantagruel, 'Pantagruelism', is rooted in 'a certain gaiety of mind pickled in the scorn of fortuitous things' (French: une certaine gaite d'esprit confite dans le mepris des choses fortuites). Rabelais had studied Ancient Greek and he applied it in inventing hundreds of new words in the text, some of which became part of the French language. Wordplay and risque humor abound in his writing... Paul Gustave Dore (January 6, 1832 - January 23, 1883) was a French artist, printmaker, illustrator and sculptor. Dore worked primarily with wood engraving.'