Educated at the Erasmus school in Rotterdam and the University of Leiden, Mandeville received his degree in medicine in 1691. He went to England where he lived for the rest of his life. A well-respected physician, he was perhaps more interested in politics than medicine. In 1705, he published The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves Turn'd Honest, as a long poem. A political satire, it was re-published as part of The Fable of the Bees: or Private Vices, Publick Benefits (1714), which also included the essay An Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue. Extremely popular and highly controversial, an expanded version appeared in 1723. His cynical views on human nature expressed in his works continued to stir controversy for the next decade. His other works include Typhon: a Burlesque Poem (1704), Aesop Dress'd (1704), The Planter's Charity (1704), The Virgin Unmasked (1709), Free Thoughts on Religion (1720), A Modest Defender of Publick Stewes (1724), An Enquiry into the Causes of the Frequent Executions at Tyburn (1725) and The Origin of Honour and the Usefulness of Christianity in War (1732). |
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