There is not much here to say that the other reviewers have not covered: Sir Francis was a truly sharp witted mind, and knew how to write good prose, and how to run his topics and resolutions home to the reader. As style goes, I personally go easily between Aristotle and Bacon in the same day, and often. To me I see much of Aristotle in Francis' works (as in his high-formal writing style), yet it seems he did not know Greek. Most of his quotations and analogies he draws from Latin writers (a large proportion seems to be Virgil and Tacitus; midst a handful of others strewn throughout).
As far as Sir Francis' writing goes, theres little bad to say, and a lot of good. This is worth reading for any philosopher, or even anyone trying to get a good hold of formal prose. He might to some seem a tad difficult to read at first, but it shouldn't prove a real obstacle for anyone actually interested in the reading -- after you read just a couple of his essays, you will likely start to get used to his style quickly. I suggest looking in the Contents and just picking out a few that look like topics you couldn't deny interest - that will get you hooked, and into the style.
As for the editor John Pitcher, there are many good things, but a certain terribly annoying quality that weighs as heavy as all the good in my opinion.
For those who do not know Latin extensively (i.e., limited vocabulary and grammar, or none at all) the annotations are of course great and indispensable. Pitcher also generously untangles Francis' allusions and such, which are helpful also at times.
But something that he (Pitcher) follows in other editors of Bacon's works, is complete asinine glossing of words in context which makes complete sense. And he does this extensively. Oftentimes in a work that actually does have an archaic vocabulary, the first glossing of the word is taken to carry its meaning through the essay, but though "estate" is used 10 times in the 2-3 page essay Pitcher will put a note at each occurrence and gloss "state" (not to mention in its context the glossing of that word is obvious and unnecessary). The amount of 'archaic' vocabulary is small and simple throughout the book; a half-page glossary could've been supplied instead of bogging the pages down with redundant annotations of obvious words and thus hurting the actually important annotations.
But all that said, this is still a great edition, a great book, great author, and even by the above facts this is probably the best publication of Francis' essays. The annoying glossing isn't too bad after you get used to it.
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Top reviews from other countries
Amund Bisgaard
Inspiring and readable
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 16, 2015